THE  WISDOM 
OF  FOOLS 


BY 

MARGARET 

DELAND 


fcp  Jftarpret 


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HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


THE  WISDOM  OF 
FOOLS 


BY 


MARGARET  DELAND 


BOSTON  AND    NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

(fc&e  ttitotffte  prc^s  Cambri&0e 


COPYRIGHT,  1897, 
BY   MARGARET    DELANO 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


TO 

L.       F.       D. 

April  27,  1897 


CONTENTS 

fAGK 

WHERE   IGNORANCE    IS   BLISS,    'TIS    FOLLY 

TO   BE   WISE        .  .  .  •  •  -3 

THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON  66 

COUNTING  THE  COST  •  13^ 

THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL?    .          .  I$l 


THE   WISDOM   OF  FOOLS 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 
'TIS   FOLLY   TO   BE  WISE 


>HE  most  delightful  thing  about 
our  engagement  is  that  every 
body  is  so  pleased  with  it." 
Amy  Townsend  said  this,  smiling  down 
at  her  lover,  who,  full  length  on  the  grass 
beside  her,  leaned  on  his  elbow,  watching 
her  soft  hair  blowing  across  her  forehead, 
and  the  color  of  the  sun  flickering  through 
the  shadows,  hot  on  her  cheek ;  for  she 
had  closed  her  fluffy  white  parasol  and 
taken  off  her  hat  here  under  an  oak-tree 
on  the  grassy  bank  of  the  river. 

"  I  should  have  thought  that  the  fact 
that  we  were  pleased  ourselves  was  a  trifle 
more  important,"  he  suggested.  But  Miss 
Townsend  paid  no  attention  to  his  inter 
ruption. 

"You  know,  generally,  when  people 
get  engaged,  there  are  always  people  who 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

exclaim  :  either  the  man  is  too  good  for 
the  girl  (and  you  are  too  good  for  me, 
Billy!),  or  the  girl  is  too  good  for  the 
man  "  — 

"  She  is ;  there  is  no  question  about 
that,"  the  man  interrupted. 

"Be  quiet!"  the  other  commanded. 
"But  in  our  case,  everybody  approves. 
You  see,  in  the  first  place,  you  are  a  Par 
son,  and  I  'm  a  Worker.  That 's  what 
they  call  me,  —  the  old  ladies,  —  '  a 
Worker.'  And  of  course  that 's  a  most 
appropriate  combination  to  start  with." 

"  Well,  the  old  ladies  will  discover  that 
my  wife  is  n't  going  to  run  their  commit 
tees  for  them,"  the  parson  said  emphati 
cally.  "  Besides,  if  I  'm  a  Parson,  you  're 
a  Person !  How  do  the  old  ladies  bear 
it,  that  I  have  n't  any  ancestors,  and  used 
to  run  errands  in  a  tin-shop  ?  /'ma 
Worker,  literally  enough." 

"  You  are  a  goose ! "  she  told  him 
calmly.  "Don't  keep  interrupting  me, 
Billy.  What  do  ancestors  amount  to  ? 
I  admit  I  'm  glad  that  none  of  mine  were 
hanged  (so  far  as  I  know),  or  that  they 
did  n't  run  off  with  other  people's  money 
4 


T  IS  FOLLY  TO  BE  WISE 

—  or  wives.  (I'd  mind  the  wives  less 
than  the  money,  I  must  confess.  I  sup 
pose  you  think  that 's  very  mediaeval  in 
me  ?)  But  what  credit  is  their  good  be 
havior  to  me  ?  You  are  a  credit  to  your 
people,  whoever  they  were ;  and  my  own 
belief  is  that  they  were  Princes  !  " 

She  had  such  a  charming  way  of  fling 
ing  up  her  head  and  looking  down  at  him 
sidewise,  that  he  was  willing  to  have  had 
any  kind  of  ancestors,  only  to  catch  that 
look  of  joyous  pride ;  and  in  his  own  joy- 
ousness  he  was  impelled  to  try  to  take  her 
hand  in  his  :  but  her  fingers  were  laced 
about  her  knee,  and  she  shook  her  head. 

"  Stop !  I  'm  talking  seriously  ;  you 
must  n't  be  silly.  You  must  listen  to  the 
other  reasons  why  we  are  approved  of: 
First,  you  are  a  Parson,  and  I  'm  a  Worker. 
Secondly,  you  are  forty-two,  and  *  it 's 
high  time '  —  high  time,  sir !  — '  for  you 
to  be  married ' ;  and  I  'm  twenty-seven  — 
and,  really,  you  know,  'my  chances  are 
lessening '  —  (that 's  what  they  say,  my 
dear) ;  and  I  '  hardly  deserve,  after  all 
these  years  '  "  — 

"  And  offers  ? "  suggested  her  lover. 
5 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

"  After  all  these  years,  Billy,  —  not  to 
get  a  crooked  stick  in  the  end." 

"  I  am  not  crooked,  I  will  admit,"  he 
said. 

"Thirdly,"  she  proceeded,  "you  are 
very  good-looking,  and  all  the  old  Tab 
bies  say  that  a  handsome  minister  ought 
to  be  married." 

"The  old  Tabbies  might  find  some 
thing  better  to  talk  about,"  he  said,  his 
face  hardening.  "  Oh,  Amy,  that 's  the 
kind  of  thing  that  makes  a  man  cringe ! 
—  I  mean  a  minister.  Here  is  this  great, 
serious,  strenuous  matter  of  living  —  the 
consciousness  of  God  ;  that 's  what  liv 
ing  is  in  its  highest  expression.  And 
to  further  that  consciousness  is  the  di- 
vinest  human  passion.  A  man  tries  to 
do  it,  gives  his  life  to  it,  and  immediately 
he  is  food  for  chattering  old  women ! 
They  gossip  about  his  affairs,  or  his 
clothes,  or  his  looks,  even!"  William 
West  sat  up,  his  face  stirred  with  anger 
and  pity.  "  But  I  suppose  I  must  admit 
that  the  Parsons  bring  it  on  themselves 
to  some  extent,"  he  ended,  with  a  sigh  ; 
"  we  don't  mingle  enough  with  men ;  they 
6 


'TIS  FOLLY  TO  BE  WISE 

distrust  us,  and  think  we  talk  twaddle 
about  overcoming  temptations  we  know 
nothing  about.  So,  being  shut  out  from 
masculine  living,  we  do  haunt  tea-tables, 
and  gabble  about  vestments.  I  suppose 
there  's  no  doubt  of  it.  Amy,  I  believe 
that  the  old  hunting,  swearing  parsons  of 
three  generations  ago  were  of  more  real 
value  in  the  world  than  the  harmless 
creatures  that  we  have  now ! " 

He  had  a  certain  stern  way  of  thrust 
ing  out  his  lower  lip  when  he  was  very 
much  in  earnest,  and  drawing  his  strong 
brows  together ;  an  impatient  fire  sprang 
into  his  beautiful  dark  eyes.  He  turned 
and  looked  at  her,  claiming  her  under 
standing. 

"Yes,"  she  said;  "yes,  it  is  so.  The 
belittling  of  the  profession  of  the  minis 
try  is  a  dreadful  thing  —  a  shameful 
thing.  I  once  heard  a  man  say  that  *  El 
derly  unmarried  women  always  had  to 
have  something  to  fuss  over  and  coddle, 
something  to  lead  around  by  a  blue  rib 
bon.  Sometimes  it  was  a  poodle ;  some 
times  it  was  a  clergyman.'  And  there 's 
truth  in  it,  Billy." 

7 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

"  There  is,"  he  said  grimly. 

"  Well,  dear,"  she  reassured  him,  smil 
ing,  "  your  distinguished  rudeness  to  the 
ladies  of  your  congregation  has  at  least 
protected  you  from  the  blue  ribbon." 

He  began  to  protest,  but  the  talk  slipped 
back  into  their  own  affairs,  and  some 
how  he  succeeded  in  getting  her  hand, 
and  by  and  by  they  were  silent,  just  for 
happiness,  and  because  it  was  sunset,  and 
the  river  was  flickering  with  light,  and 
there  was  a  faint  stir  of  leaves  overhead. 
They  were  to  be  married  in  a  fortnight, 
and  they  were  going  to  have  all  their  lives 
together  to  say  how  good  life  was,  so 
there  was  no  need  to  talk  now. 

As  the  girl  had  said,  it  really  was  a 
very  satisfactory  match.  William  West 
was  a  man  whom  every  one  honored,  and 
many  loved.  For  fifteen  years  he  had 
been  settled  in  Mercer ;  first  as  an  assist 
ant  to  old  Mr.  Brown,  and  then  as  rector 
of  the  church.  But  he  had  taken  his 
place  in  the  community  as  a  man  of 
strong  judgment  and  high  character;  per 
haps  as  a  citizen,  rather  than  as  a  minis 
ter.  Men  felt  that  he  was  a  man  before 
8 


'T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

he  was  a  clergyman ;  not  knowing  that 
his  calling  had  given  him  his  highest 
manhood.  He  was  singularly  devoid  of 
clerical  affectation ;  consequently  the  in 
fluence  of  his  own  reverence  was  not  viti 
ated  by  a  suspicion  of  his  common  sense. 
In  fact,  his  sanity  in  matters  religious, 
joined  to  his  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
made  him  a  man  of  importance  in  affairs 
municipal  and  social.  That  he  had  lived 
to  be  forty-two,  and  had  not  married,  was 
from  no  asceticism  ;  he  was  a  very  human 
person,  and  fully  intended  to  have  a  wife ; 
only,  she  must  be  just  what  he  wanted. 
And  so  far,  that  "  not  impossible  She  " 
who  was  to  possess  his  heart  had  never 
appeared.  When  she  did,  he  recognized 
her  immediately,  and  would  have  pro 
posed  to  her  the  next  day,  had  not  a  feel 
ing  of  diffidence  as  to  her  sentiments 
deterred  him  for  nearly  two  weeks.  At 
the  end  of  that  time,  he  told  her  —  ah, 
well,  never  mind  what  he  told  her  !  She, 
at  least,  will  never  forget  the  passion  of 
that  claiming. 

Amy  Townsend  had   come   to  spend 
the  winter  in  Mercer,  with  a  cousin.     Of 
9 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

course,  the  first  Sunday  she  went  to  St. 
James's,  as  everybody  who  was  anybody 
did.  When  she  came  home,  her  eyes 
were  keen  with  interest. 

"  Do  tell  me  about  him,  Cousin  Kate," 
she  said.  "  I  never  heard  that  sort  of 
preaching  ;  what  does  it  mean  ?  Is  he  a 
real  person,  or  is  he  just  clever  ?  "  Mrs. 
Paul  laughed. 

"  Wait  till  you  meet  him  !  you  '11  see." 

But  she  also  added  to  herself,  "  Wait 
till  he  meets  you  !  "  For  Mrs.  Paul  was 
one  of  those  courageous  women  who  rush 
in  where  angels  fear  to  tread  ;  she  was  a 
match-maker. 

"  Is  he  married  ?  "  the  girl  asked,  nat 
urally  enough  ;  but  blushed  furiously  the 
next  instant,  which  made  her  angry. 

"  No  ;  but  it  is  not  for  lack  of  oppor 
tunity,"  said  Mrs.  Paul  dryly.  "  I  de 
clare,  Amy,  women  are  dreadful  fools, 
sometimes  !  I  should  think  a  clergyman 
would  n't  marry,  out  of  sheer  disgust  for 
their  silliness." 

"Oh,  he's  run  after,  is  he?"  Miss 
Townsend  said  coldly. 

"  Well,  I  must  admit  he  's  very  attrac, 

10 


»T  IS   FOLLY  TO   BE   WISE 

tive,"  Mrs.  Paul  began,  remembering  her 
scheme,  and  retreating  a  little,  —  for 
nothing  will  put  a  girl  against  a  man 
sooner  than  to  know  he  is  "  run  after." 

Then  she  told  his  story  :  the  boy  had 
been  a  waif.  ("  His  mother  was  respect 
able,  I  think,"  said  Mrs.  Paul,  "but  no 
body  knows  anything  about  the  father.") 
He  had  had  that  dreariest  sort  of  child 
hood  which  knows  no  other  home  than 
an  institution.  Then,  somehow,  "  quite 
like  a  story-book,"  Mrs.  Paul  said,  a 
gentleman  took  an  interest  in  him,  and 
began  to  help  him  in  one  way  or  another. 

"  It  was  that  zoological  man,  Professor 
Wilson  ;  you  know  who  I  mean  ?  "  Mrs. 
Paul  explained.  "  He  looked  after  him. 
At  first  he  put  him  in  a  tinshop,  if  you 
please,  as  errand-boy,  —  fancy  !  this  man 
with  the  '  grand  manner.'  ' 

"  Oh,  I  supposed  he  was  a  gentleman," 
Amy  Townsend  said. 

"  Amy,  you  are  a  snob,"  her  cousin 
answered  hotly.  "  He  is." 

Mrs.  Paul  was  so  annoyed  that  she 
ended  the  story  of  Mr.  West's  career 
very  briefly.  "  Professor  Wilson  offered 
ii 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

either  to  start  him  in  business  or  put 
him  through  college ;  he  chose  to  go  to 
college." 

"That  was  rather  fine,"  Miss  Town- 
send  agreed. 

"Fine?  It  just  showed  what  sort  of 
a  man  he  was  !  "  cried  Mrs.  Paul.  "  He 
worked  his  way  to  some  extent ;  that  is, 
he  was  Professor  Wilson's  secretary,  and 
he  did  a  lot  of  tutoring.  Professor  Wil 
son  left  him  a  good  deal  of  money,  but 
he  gave  away  nearly  half  of  it  at  once, 
John  says.  Quite  remarkable  for  a  young 
man.  Well,  that 's  all ;  you  see  what  he 
is  to-day  —  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar : 
John  says  there  is  no  man  in  Mercer  who 
has  the  influence  that  he  has." 

Miss  Townsend,  in  spite  of  her  careful 
indifference,  was  interested.  And  later, 
when  Rev.  William  West  met  her,  he, 
too,  was  "  interested ; "  and  all  fell  out 
as  the  most  experienced  romancer  could 
desire. 

Amy  had  a  little  money,  much  charm, 
a  certain  distinction  that  answered  for 
beauty,  and  a  very  true  nature  ;  there 
was,  perhaps,  a  certain  hard  integrity 

12 


T  IS   FOLLY  TO  BE   WISE  x 

about  her,  but  her  impulses  were  gra 
cious.  Also,  as  the  old  ladies  said,  she 
was  a  "  worker."  She  found  life  too  in 
teresting  not  to  meddle  with  it. 

So  it  had  come  to  pass  that  these  two, 
who,  as  Mrs.  Paul  said,  "  were  made  for 
each  other,"  were  going  to  be  married. 

"  Just  think,  in  two  weeks  !  "  he  said, 
as  they  sat  there  under  the  oak,  the  blos 
soming  grass  knee-deep  about  them,  and 
the  air  sweet  with  clover.  "  Amy,  it  does 
not  seem  as  if  I  had  been  alive  until 
now." 

"  I  wonder,  does  it  go  on  getting  — 
nicer  ?  "  she  asked  him,  a  little  shyly ; 
"  everything  seems  to  be  better,  and  more 
worth  while." 

"  I  understand,"  he  said. 

And  they  were  silent  for  awhile,  be 
cause  understanding  is  enough,  when 
people  are  in  love.  Then  the  girl's  gay- 
ety  began  to  sparkle  out. 

"  Billy,  Cousin  Kate  says  if  I  'm  not 
careful  I  '11  get  to  be  a  managing  Parson- 
ess  ;  she  says  I  must   devote  myself  to 
you,  not  to  your  poor  people." 
13 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

"  Mrs.  Paul  has  given  a  great  deal  of 
good  advice  in  her  day,"  the  Rev.  Billy 
remarked  meditatively,  "  and  I  really 
think  very  little  harm  has  come  from  it." 

"  She  advised  your  being  called  to 
Mercer,"  Amy  retorted.  "  Did  you  know 
that  ? " 

"  Know  it  ?  My  dear  child !  how  often 
have  I  dined  at  the  Pauls'  ?  Just  so  often 
have  I  heard  it." 

"  Now,  Billy,  that 's  not  very  nice  in 
you." 

"  I  but  stated  a  fact ;  and  I  have  a 
high  regard  for  Mrs.  Paul.  Only,  when 
I  think  how  many  girls  she  has  tried  to 
make  marry  me !  —  but  they  would  none 
of  them  look  at  me." 

"And  in  two  weeks  the  opportunity 
will  be  gone,"  she  jeered. 

"  Poor  girls  !  "  the  minister  commis 
erated  ;  and  was  reproved  for  vanity. 
Indeed,  just  because  happiness  is  so  seri 
ous  a  thing,  they  became  very  frivolous, 
these  two,  sitting  watching  the  sunset, 
and  the  river.  Amy  told  him  a  funny 
story  about  the  parish ;  he  responded  by 
another  concerning  Tom  Reilly,  a  police- 
14 


T  IS   FOLLY  TO   BE   WISE 

man ;  which  reminded  Amy  to  tell  him 
that  poor  Tom  had  had  an  accident,  and 
hurt  his  hand. 

"  But  it  was  very  stupid  in  him,"  she 
added,  with  a  little  of  that  resentful  good 
ness  that  one  sees  sometimes  in  women. 
"  I  'm  not  at  all  sorry  for  him,  because 
he  deserved  it.  He  had  been  drinking, 
and  as  he  went  stumbling  out  of  a  car, 
he  crushed  his  hand  in  the  door." 

Her  lover  was  not  to  be  lured  into  pro 
fessional  comments ;  he  only  muttered, 
"  Mauvais  quart  d'heure  "  —  which  made 
her  say  indignantly  :  "  Now,  Billy,  really, 
that  is  too  much  !  "  and  insist  that  they 
should  go  home  immediately.  "  I  cannot 
descend  to  such  levels,"  she  told  him  ; 
and  was  very  stern  and  forbidding  when, 
looking  to  the  right  and  left,  and  seeing 
no  man,  he  begged  to  be  allowed  to  kiss 
her. 

But  this  was  all  froth.  Beneath,  in  the 
man's  life,  were  the  great  tides  of  love, 
moving,  noiseless  and  unchangeable,  from 
out  the  depths  of  his  soul.  In  the  girl's 
life  it  was  all  shine  and  perfume  and 
glitter,  like  flowers  blossoming  on  a  rock ; 
15 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

beneath,  in  her  heart,  was  the  solid  ground 
of  reverence  and  faith. 


II 

The  two  weeks  that  were  to  pass  be 
fore  the  day  that  was  to  be  the  Day  of 
Days  were  very  full. 

To  get  parish  work  ahead  so  that 
things  would  run  themselves  for  the 
month's  absence  which  had  been  granted 
the  clergyman  was  no  small  undertaking. 
William  West  was  very  busy,  and  a  little 
preoccupied  in  his  endeavor  to  put  his 
best  thought,  not  upon  his  own  happi 
ness,  but  upon  committees,  or  Sunday- 
school  matters,  or  his  assistant's  spiritual 
anxieties  concerning  his  superior's  indif 
ference  to  the  color  of  the  lectern  book 
marks  ;  so  it  chanced  that  he  saw  less 
of  Amy  than  in  the  earlier  part  of  their 
engagement.  He  had  but  little  time  to 
think  of  her,  and  absolutely  no  time  to 
think  of  himself. 

They  were  to  be  married  on  Thursday. 
Late  Monday  afternoon  Mr.  West,  with 
great  timidity,  ventured  into  Mrs.  Paul's 
16 


°T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

drawing-room,  with  the  bold  purpose  of 
abstracting  his  sweetheart  for  a  walk. 
The  project  was,  of  course,  promptly 
crushed. 

"  As  though  Amy  had  any  time  for 
that  sort  of  thing !  "  said  Mrs.  Paul.  "  Do 
you  see  those  presents  ?  She  has  got  to 
acknowledge  every  one  of  them  !  Amy, 
your  cousin  John  and  I  will  entertain 
Mr.  West.  You  can  write  your  notes 
here,  and  let  him  look  at  you ;  that 's 
quite  enough  for  him." 

Amy  smiled  at  him  across  a  barricade 
of  silver  bric-a-brac. 

"  Billy  thinks  silver  picture-frames  and 
brushes  and  things  are  a  dreadful  waste 
of  money,"  she  said.  "Just  think  how 
thankful  you  ought  to  be,  Billy,  that  I 
am  making  our  manners  for  you  ;  you 
could  n't  say  '  Thank  you,'  with  truth." 

"  Oh,  truth,"  said  John  Paul,  lounging 
about  the  room,  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets  —  "  truth,  my  dear  little  cousin, 
is  governed  by  the  law  of  benefit ;  did  n't 
you  know  that  ?  If  it  makes  the  donors 
feel  happy,  tell  them  West  has  longed  for 
nothing  in  the  world  so  much  as  a  silver 
17 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

glove  buttoner.  Now,  if  you  told  them 
the  truth,  fancy  the  shock!  Ask  the 
Parson." 

"  The  Parson  has  no  such  base  and  cyni 
cal  theory,"  Miss  Townsend  responded 
promptly  ;  "  have  you,  Billy  ?  You  don't 
think  truth  is  governed  by  the  law  of 
benefit  ?  " 

"  I  think  truth-telling  is,"  he  assured 
her. 

John  Paul  assumed  that  look  of  art 
less  and  simpering  satisfaction  which  one 
sees  on  the  countenance  of  the  unpro 
tected  male,  who,  in  the  bosom  of  his 
family,  finds  himself  indorsed  by  a  higher 
power. 

"  There,  Amy,  what  did  I  tell  you  ?  I 
had  an  instance  of  it  yesterday.  I  "  — 

"Oh,  here  is  a  third  asparagus  fork," 
murmured  Amy  ;  "  what  shall  I  say  about 
it  ? " 

"  What  's  your  instance  ?  "  said  the 
minister. 

"  Well,  we  Ve  been  looking  for  an  as 
sistant  engineer,  and  there  have  been 
the  Lord  only  knows  how  many  appli 
cants.  One  fellow  impressed  me  very 
18 


'TIS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

well ;  he  seemed  as  straight  as  a  string  ; 
honest  face,  thoroughly  decent-looking 
fellow.  He  was  an  Englishman,  but  his 
references  for  three  years  were  Amer 
ican.  So  much  the  better,  of  course.  I 
was  going  to  engage  him,  when,  bless 
my  soul,  if  he  did  n't  begin  to  stammer 
out  something  about  having  no  references 
from  '  Home '  ('  'ome,'  he  called  it),  be 
cause  he  '  'ad  n't  been  over  steady,'  but 
he  'd  signed  the  pledge,  and  '  he  was  n't 
afraid  of  drink  any  more.'  I  did  n't  hire 
him.  Now,  I  call  that  truth  not  gov 
erned  by  the  law  of  benefit." 

"  You  don't  discriminate  between  be 
ing  truthful  and  telling  the  truth,"  said 
William  West.  "  You  had  n't  asked  him 
if  he  had  ever  drank.  I  don't  believe  you 
lost  much,  in  not  engaging  him,  poor  fel 
low." 

"  Oh,  Billy,  I  think  it  was  rather  fine 
in  him,"  Amy  protested,  looking  up  from 
her  notes. 

"  I  don't  see  anything  fine,"  the  min 
ister  said  simply.  "  In  the  first  place, 
there  was  a  lack  of  reserve,  a  lack  of 
privacy,  in  rushing  into  confession,  which 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS  BLISS 

betrays  the  weak  nature.  There  was 
also  self -consciousness,  in  dwelling  on  his 
sin.  And  in  the  third  place  " 

"  This  sounds  like  a  sermon  :  firstly  — 
secondly  "  —  Amy  murmured,  signing 
her  name  to  her  thanks  for  the  third 
asparagus  fork. 

—  "  in  the  third  place,  if  the  man  has 
reformed,  there  was  an  essential  untruth 
in  posing  as  a  sinner." 

"  Well,  I  don't  quite  agree  with  that," 
began  Mrs.  Paul. 

"He's  right;  he's  right,"  John  Paul 
declared.  "  I  say,  West,  suppose  we 
went  about  confessing  some  of  our  col 
lege  performances  ? "  The  senior  warden 
of  St.  James  grinned,  but  his  wife  looked 
displeased. 

"  I  don't  believe  you  ever  did  anything 
very  bad,  John ;  but  if  you  did,  I  think 
you  should  have  confessed  to  me." 

"I  stole  some  signs,  Kate,"  he  told 
her  ;  "  can  you  forgive  me  ? " 

Amy,  listening,  smiling,  said  with  that 
charming  sidewise  glance  at  her  lover : 
"Cousin  Kate  is  quite  right.  I  should 
never  forgive  a  man  who  did  n't  tell  me 

20 


'TIS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

everything !  Billy,  come  here  and  con 
fess.  Have  you  ever  done  anything 
wicked  ? " 

"  We  are  all  miserable  sinners,"  John 
Paul  murmured.  "  I  say  so  publicly  every 
Sunday  "  — 

"But  you  don't  specify  ! "  the  minister 
reminded  him,  with  a  laugh. 

"  Yes  ;  but,  Billy,"  Amy  Townsend  ii> 
sisted,  "  does  n't  it  say  somewhere  that 
*  confession  is  good  for  the  soul '  ?  " 

"Perhaps  it  is,"  he  said  dryly,  "but, 
generally  speaking,  it 's  mighty  bad  for 
the  mind." 

There  was  an  outcry  at  this  from  the 
two  women. 

"  Of  course,"  Mrs.  Paul  said,  "  simply 
gossiping  about  one's  self  is  n't  confes 
sion  ;  but  don't  you  think,  Mr.  West,  in 
the  really  deep  relations  of  life,  between 
friend  and  friend,  or  husband  and  wife, 
there  should  be  no  reserves  ? " 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Paul,"  he  answered,  with 
quick  gravity,  "there  must  be  reserves 
—  except  with  God.  The  human  soul  is 
solitary.  But  for  confession,  that  is  dif 
ferent ;  justice  and  reparation  sometimes 

21 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

demand  it ;  but,  again,  justice  and  cour 
age  sometimes  forbid  it.  Unless  it  is 
necessary,  it  is  flabby  vanity.  That's 
why  I  said  it  was  bad  for  the  mind." 

"Well,"  said  Amy,  with  some  spirit, 
"  I  don't  believe  in  taking  respect,  or  — 
or  love,  on  false  pretenses.  If  I  had  ever 
done  any  dreadful  thing,  I  should  want 
to  confess ;  good  gracious,  for  the  mere 
comfort  of  it  I  should  have  to  !  It  would 
be  like  walking  on  a  volcano  to  keep  a 
secret." 

William  West  went  over  to  the  table 
where  she  was  writing,  and,  finding  a 
place  among  the  clutter  of  presents  to 
lean  his  elbow,  sat  down  and  looked  at 
her  with  good-humored  amusement. 

"Where  are  you  going  to  draw  the 
line  ?  How  far  back  are  you  going  in 
confessing  your  sins  ?  Please  don't  tell 
me  that  you  slapped  your  nurse  when 
you  were  three.  It  would  be  a  horrible 
shock,  and  make  me  very  unhappy  to  dis 
cover  such  a  crime." 

"I  shall  go  all  the  way  back,"  said 
Amy,  with  decision ;  "  if  I  had  done  any 
thing  wrong,  I  mean  very  wrong,  I  should 

22 


'T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

tell  you,  —  if  I  had  only  been  a  year 
old ! " 

The  minister  laughed.  "  A  desperate 
villain  of  one  year !  "  he  said ;  but  as  he 
spoke  a  puzzled  look  came  into  his  eyes. 

"  I  think,"  Amy  Townsend  proceeded, 
"that  honor  and  fairness  demand  speak 
ing  out.  And  as  for  making  some  one 
else  unhappy,"  her  voice  dropped  a  little, 
and  the  color  came  up  into  her  face, 
"  where  people  love  each  other,  they  have 
a  right  to  unhappiness." 

"  Listen  to  Amy  clamoring  for  unhap 
piness  ! "  John  Paul  commented.  "  Don't 
worry,  my  child ;  you  '11  get  your  share. 
There 's  enough  to  go  round,  I  Ve  no 
ticed." 

Mrs.  Paul  laughed,  but  a  note  of  real 
ity  had  come  into  the  careless  talk  that 
gave  her  a  sense  of  being  a  third  party. 

"John,  you  are  flippant,"  she  said; 
"  come,  let 's  leave  these  two  poor  things 
alone ;  they  're  dying  to  get  rid  of  us. 
And  besides,  if  Amy  is  going  to  confess 
her  sins  since  she  was  one  year  old,  it 
will  take  time." 

"  That  I  consider  a  most  uncalled  for 
23 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

reference  to  my  twenty -seven  years," 
Amy  retorted ;  "  and  besides,  I  've  two 
more  notes  to  write." 

"And  I  must  go  home,"  William 
West  said,  rising  in  a  preoccupied  man 
ner. 

"Why  —  but  I  thought  you  were  go 
ing  to  stay  to  dinner ! "  Mrs.  Paul  pro 
tested,  with  dismay. 

"  Oh,  you  must  stay  to  dinner,"  Amy 
urged. 

But  her  lover  was  resolute.  Nor  did 
he,  as  usual,  try  to  lure  her  out  into  the 
hall  that  he  might  make  his  adieus.  He 
said  good-night,  stopped  a  moment  to 
discuss  with  his  senior  warden  some 
thing  about  the  appropriation  for  repairs 
at  St.  James,  and  then,  with  a  sober 
abstraction  deepening  in  his  face,  went 
home  through  the  delicate  June  dusk, 
which  was  full  of  the  scent  of  the  roses 
that  grow  behind  the  garden  walls  of  the 
old-fashioned  part  of  Mercer. 
24 


TIS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 
III 

The  Rev.  William  West  went  into  his 
study  and  shut  the  door.  He  was  a 
man  who  was  always  accessible  to  his 
people,  yet  his  lips  tightened  with  im 
patience  when  he  found  a  parishioner 
awaiting  him,  and  saw  a  pile  of  notes 
on  his  writing-table.  But  it  was  only 
for  an  instant ;  he  listened  to  the  anxi 
eties  of  his  caller  with  that  concentra 
tion  of  sympathy  which  can  put  self 
aside;  and  when  the  man.  went  away 
it  was  with  the  other  man's  heartfelt 
grip  of  the  hand,  his  heartfelt  "  I  thank 
you  for  coming  to  me;  God  bless  you, 
my  friend,  and  give  you  wisdom." 

The  letters  were  not  so  easy ;  but 
he  went  through  them  faithfully,  an 
swering  them  or  filing  them  away:  ap 
peals  for  help,  or  money,  or  work ;  two 
invitations;  two  letters  from  ladies  of 
his  congregation  about  their  souls  ;  the 
unmarried  and  interesting  clergyman 
knows  this  sort  of  letter  too  well !  He 
was  aware  of  a  sense  of  haste  in  getting 
through  with  these  things;  a  sense  of 
25 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

haste  even  in  disposing  of  another  caller, 
a  boy,  who  came  to  say  he  had  doubts 
about  the  existence  of  God,  and  who  felt 
immensely  important  in  consequence.  "  I 
tell  you,  Mr.  West,"  this  youth  declared, 
nodding  his  head,  "  of  course  I  don't 
mean  to  be  hard  on  the  church ;  of 
course  I  see  the  value  of  such  a  belief 
in  keeping  the  masses  straight,  but,  for 
thinking  men  !  "  To  treat  this  sort  of 
thing  seriously  and  patiently  is  one  of 
the  trials  of  a  thinking  man  who  hap 
pens  to  be  a  minister.  Then  the  Tenor 
came  to  give  his  side  of  the  quarrel  with 
the  Bass,  and  the  organist  to  say  that 
quartette  and  chorus  were  all  fools. 

One  does  not  prove  the  existence  of 
God,  or  pacify  wounded  artistic  feelings 
easily;  it  was  nearly  midnight  before 
the  clergyman  had  his  library  to  him 
self. 

With  a  sigh  of  relief  he  shut  the  door, 
and  walked  once  or  twice  about  the 
room,  as  though  trying  to  shake  off 
other  people's  affairs ;  then  he  bit  off 
the  end  of  a  cigar,  struck  a  match,  and 
sat  down.  He  put  his  hands  deep  into 
26 


TIS   FOLLY  TO  BE   WISE 

his  pockets,  and  stretched  his  feet 
straight  out  in  front  of  him. 

"  It  must  be  five  years  since  I  Ve 
thought  of  it,"  he  said  to  himself. 

He  held  his  lighted  cigar  between 
his  fingers,  his  chin  sunk  on  his  breast, 
his  mouth  set  in  that  hard  line  which 
refuses  to  extenuate  or  evade ;  his  eyes 
narrowed  with  thought.  Five  years : 
Yes,  the  memory  had  so  faded  and 
lessened  that  by  and  by  it  had  ceased, 
and  now  it  was  as  though,  as  he  walked 
along  the  level  path  of  daily  life,  a  ser 
pent  suddenly  lifted  its  evil  head  from 
the  dust,  and  struck  at  him,  hissing. 

"  I  was  eighteen,"  he  said  to  himself ; 
"  no,  nineteen.  And  now  I  'm  forty- 
two  !  Twenty  -  nine,  thirty  -  nine  —  it 's 
twenty-three  years  ago." 

There  is  a  hideous  consciousness 
which  comes  to  most  of  us  men  and  wo 
men  at  one  time  or  another  in  our  lives, 
of  our  inability  to  get  away  from  the 
past.  From  out  of  the  "roaring  loom 
of  Time  "  comes  the  fabric  of  our  lives  ; 
white,  run,  perhaps,  with  a  warp  of 
silver  in  our  latter  years ;  set,  even,  by 
27 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS  BLISS 

the  mercy  of  God,  with  deep  jewels 
of  experience;  spangled  with  golden 
threads  of  opportunity;  but  back,  in 
its  beginnings  —  what  stains,  what  rents  ! 
dragged  through  what  foul  and  prime 
val  experiences  of  youth !  Some,  by 
environment  and  temperament,  have 
nothing  to  blush  for  but  follies ;  the 
joyous  baseness  of  the  young  animal 
never  broke  through  the  conditions  of 
their  lives,  or  the  dullness  of  their 
minds.  But  for  most  there  are  black 
spots  from  which,  with  wonder  and 
disgust,  the  adult  turns  away  his  eyes : 
the  cruelty  and  impurity  of  childhood ; 
the  ingratitude  and  meanness  of  youth. 
With  the  man,  as  with  the  race,  that  is 
not  first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that 
which  is  natural. 

Twenty-three  years  ago :  is  there  any 
connection  between  a  fault  committed 
then  and  the  William  West  of  to-day? 
None!  What  has  he  in  common  with 
the  boy  of  nineteen  ?  Nothing  ! 

Suppose  he  told  Amy,  would  she  un 
derstand  that?  Why,  the  very  fact 
that  he  had  forgotten  it  meant  that  he 
28 


'T  IS   FOLLY  TO   BE   WISE 

did  not  belong  to  it,  nor  it  to  him.  And 
yet  he  wanted  to  tell  her ! 

William  West  got  up  with  an  im 
patient  gesture.  How  absurd  this  sort 
of  mental  posturing  and  agonizing  was  ! 
What  folly,  to  think  of  burdening  Amy 
with  the  miserable  facts.  Told  now, 
twenty-three  years  afterwards,  their  re 
lation  to  his  present  life  could  not  be 
seen  in  true  proportion.  It  would  be  an 
amazement  and  a  shame  to  her  to  think 
that  her  lover,  her  husband,  had  done 
thus  and  so.  Yet,  it  would  not  be  her 
husband  who  was  the  sinner ;  it  was  that 
poor,  foolish,  wicked  boy  of  so  many 
years  ago ;  that  boy  upon  whom  he 
looked  back  with  the  amazement  and 
disgust  of  an  outside  observer.  What  a 
curious  untruth,  then,  in  confessing  it. 
He  gave  a  sigh  of  relief  as  he  reached 
this  conclusion ;  it  was  as  if  he  had 
stumbled  for  a  moment,  but  had  got  his 
balance  again. 

But,  in  spite  of  himself,  his  mind  crept 

back  to  the  brink  of  that  black  abyss  of 

memory  :  those  were  dreadful  days,  those 

days  of  repentance  twenty  years  ago.   The 

29 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

remembrance  of  his  sin  would  surge  over 
him  at  the  most  unexpected  moments  — • 
in  the  midst  of  work  or  study ;  when  he 
was  talking ;  when  he  was  praying  ;  when, 
perhaps,  he  was  helping  some  other  hu 
man  creature  stagger  along  under  a  bur 
den  of  remorse.  The  deeper  he  went  into 
the  new  life  he  had  begun  to  lead  —  the 
clearer  the  heavenly  vision  grew  before 
his  eyes  —  the  blacker  the  sin  seemed. 
For  years,  the  memory  of  it  used  to  come 
over  him  with  a  sudden  sinking  and  sick 
ening  of  the  soul.  He  remembered  how 
inescapable  the  torment  of  his  regret  had 
been.  There  would  be  periods  of  forget- 
fulness,  when  he  was  plunged  into  work, 
and  life,  because  it  was  service,  seemed 
good  and  sweet ;  then,  at  some  word,  or 
the  look  of  the  sky,  or  the  smell  of  a  flower 
—  the  evil  spirit  of  recollection  would 
leap  upon  him  and  tear  him.  Yet  the 
periods  of  forgetfulness  had  lengthened 
and  lengthened.  The  pain  and  shame 
had  faded  and  faded.  The  thing  that 
gave  him  this  sick  feeling,  as  he  sat  here 
in  his  study  at  midnight,  was  not  the  fact 
that  he  had  sinned ;  it  was  the  memory 
30 


T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

of  how  he  had  suffered  for  his  sin.  The 
sin  itself,  now,  was  too  remote,  too  sepa 
rate  from  himself  for  any  more  repent 
ance  ;  it  had  ceased  to  be  real.  But  the 
suffering !  —  he  could  not  bear  to  think 
of  that. 

"  How  mad  this  is ! "  he  said  to  him 
self,  with  a  curious  terror  lest  the  old 
anguish  should  come  back  :  the  horror  a 
man  might  feel  who  sees  the  surgeon's 
knife  under  which  he  has  once  agonized. 

For  very  fear  of  memory,  William  West 
drove  his  thoughts  back  to  the  question 
of  his  duty  to  Amy ;  that  was  plain  rea 
soning,  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  this 
nightmare. 

He  lighted  another  match,  but  held  it 
absently,  until  it  scorched  his  fingers, 
then  flung  it  down  with  an  angry  excla 
mation.  It  seemed  as  though  the  pain 
burned  through  all  this  fog  of  the  past, 
and  showed  him  the  facts  which  he  must 
judge,  and  the  folly  of  his  uncertainty. 
For,  after  all,  what  was  this  matter  he 
was  trying  to  decide  ?  Was  it  not  merely 
the  question  of  what  was  best  for  Amy, 
not  what  was  most  comfortable  for  him- 
31 


WHERE  IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

self  ?  It  was  that  abstraction  called 
Honor,  as  applied  to  Amy's  happiness. 

What  was  for  her  happiness,  or,  as  he 
had  put  it  first,  what  was  his  duty  to  her  ? 
To  let  her  know  his  past,  or  to  keep  a 
secret  from  her,  and  allow  her  to  sup 
pose  that  she  knew  his  life  as  she  did  her 
own? 

Admit  that  it  was  his  impulse  to  tell 
her ;  what  did  that  impulse  really  mean  ? 
Primarily,  that  it  would  be  a  great  relief 
to  him ;  the  idea  of  having  any  reserves 
was  most  repugnant  to  him.  For  the 
moment  the  instinct  was  again  strong  to 
tell  her.  But,  frowning,  he  went  on  with 
his  argument :  A  relief  to  him  ;  but  what 
to  her  ?  A  pain  and  a  shame ;  a  memory 
that  might  outlast  another  twenty-three 
years,  perhaps.  But  she  might  want  to 
know  it  ?  Well,  that  was  no  reason.  If 
she  wanted  poison,  should  he  give  it  to 
her  ?  And  this  was  poison.  Did  he  not 
know  that  ?  Good  God  ! 

But  she  had  a  right  to  know  it  ?    Here 

he  was  perfectly  clear  ;  certainly  not.     It 

in  no  wise  bore  upon  his  relation  to  her. 

Furthermore,  the  question  of   prudence 

32 


T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

was  not  involved ;  there  was  no  chance 
that  some  day,  somehow,  it  might  come 
to  her  ears.  She  could  never  hear  it, 
except  from  him.  If  this  were  not  the 
case,  of  course  he  would  tell  her. 

But  was  he  deceiving  her?  Was  he, 
as  she  put  it,  "taking  her  love  on  false 
pretenses"?  William  West  got  up  and 
walked  the  length  of  his  library ;  then  he 
stopped  by  the  open  window,  and  looked 
out  on  the  silent  street ;  a  policeman  on 
his  beat  glanced  up  and  saw  him,  and 
touched  his  helmet  with  two  fingers. 

"  Good-evening,  sir ;  don't  know  but 
what  I  'd  better  say  good-morning  !  " 

"  What !  Is  it  as  late  as  all  that, 
Reilly  ? "  the  minister  said ;  and  added  a 
friendly  inquiry  about  the  man's  hand, 
which  seemed  to  be  hurt.  Amy's  stern 
sense  of  the  retributive  justice  of  the  ac 
cident  came  into  his  mind,  and  he  smiled 
involuntarily.  The  policeman  looked 
sheepish,  as  the  clergyman  meant  he 
should,  and  turned  the  conversation  by 
remarking  that  he  would  "be  lookin* 
after  the  rectory  special  when  Mr.  West 
was  away  on  his  weddin'  tower." 
33 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

"  Thank  you,  Reilly !  "  the  other  an 
swered  heartily. 

The  policeman's  steps  went  echoing 
off  into  the  night ;  a  street  lamp  flickered, 
and  a  puff  of  soft  wind  wandered  into 
the  window. 

Deceiving  her :  taking  her  love  under 
false  pretenses. 

Was  he  anything  but  the  man  Amy 
supposed  him  to  be  ?  Very  humbly,  very 
truly,  he  said  to  himself  that,  by  the 
grace  of  God,  he  was  an  honest,  pure, 
God-fearing  man.  That  sin  of  twenty- 
three  years  ago  was  not  his  sin.  He, 
William  West,  forty-two  years  old,  whose 
honorable  record  in  the  community  was 
spread  through  all  these  years  of  service, 
was  not  that  base,  mean,  wicked  boy. 
The  sin  was  not  his.  It  was  a  sir*  of 
youth ;  a  sin  almost  of  childhood.  It 
meant  nothing  to  him  now. 

"  It  is  nothing  now,"  he  insisted,  pas 
sionately.  Accustomed  to  weigh  other 
people's  actions  and  motives,  he  knew 
that  he  was  discriminating  with  almost 
judicial  impartiality  when  he  thus  looked 
himself  in  the  face.  "  A  repentant  man 
34 


'TIS   FOLLY   TO   BE  WISE 

has  no  more  to  do  with  his  sin,  for  which 
ht  has  repented  and  made  reparation, 
than  a  well  man  has  to  do  with  the  dis 
ease  of  which  he  has  been  cured!'  He 
remembered  that  he  had  used  this  illus 
tration  once  to  some  one  else ;  he  must 
apply  it  now  to  himself.  No  ;  he  was  not 
deceiving  Amy.  He  was  only  sparing 
her  —  sparing  her,  to  be  sure,  from  a 
pain  she  might  wish  to  bear,  but  that  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  question.  If  she 
knew,  she  would  suffer  ;  not  from  a  fact, 
but  from  an  illusion ;  for  he  would  be 
confessing  a  sin  which  was  not  his  sin. 
Honor?  The  word  seemed  artificial  as 
he  thus  put  the  situation  before  him. 

No  ;  it  would  be  cowardly  to  tell  her, 
and  it  would  be  untrue.  There  was 
nothing  for  him  to  do  but  face  the  fact 
that,  to  spare  her,  he  must  bear,  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  the  wretched  burden  of 
realizing  that  he  had  a  secret  from  her. 

Sanely,  truly,  this  good  man  believed 
that  his  impulse  to  tell  the  woman  he 
loved  was  selfish  and  cowardly  ;  it  was 
an  impulse  to  make  her  share  a  burden 
which  he  deserved  to  bear  alone.  Fur- 
35 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

thermore,  it  was  the  effect,  not  of  reason, 
not  of  religion,  not  of  love ;  it  was  the 
effect,  first,  of  the  selfish  desire  to  seek 
relief  by  sharing  a  cruel  knowledge  ;  sec 
ondly,  of  a  traditional  sentimentality,  the 
weak  and  driveling  outcome  of  that  sense 
of  justice  which  is  expressed  in  the  will 
ingness  to  bear  consequences. 

Well,  the  boy  who  had  sinned  had 
borne  the  consequences ;  he  had  suf 
fered. 

For  the  man  to  suffer  now,  twenty- 
three  years  after,  was  unreasonable,  but 
inevitable. 

For  a  woman,  who  had  no  part  or  lot 
in  that  young  past,  to  suffer  now,  twenty- 
three  years  afterwards,  was  foolish  and 
useless. 

If  the  man  permitted  it,  he  was  a  cow 
ard  and  a  fool. 

This,  at  least,  was  what  William  West 
told  himself. 

36 


'TIS   FOLLY   TO  BE   WISE 
IV 

The  conclusion  to  which  the  Rev.  Mr. 
West  came  was  that,  if  his  love  for  Amy 
was  deep  enough  and  unselfish  enough, 
he  would  hold  his  tongue.  He  believed 
that  confession,  apart  from  reparation, 
was  the  refuge  of  the  weak  mind. 

Having  thus  decided  to  bear  alone  the 
burden  of  his  secret,  he  went,  early  in 
the  morning,  and  told  the  woman  he 
loved. 

Of  course,  there  is  no  explanation  of 
this  vacillation  and  indifference  to  his 
own  judgment,  except  the  mere  state 
ment  that  he  was  in  love. 

"Amy  is  trying  on  her  dress,"  Mrs. 
Paul  said,  when  he  was  ushered  into  the 
library,  "  so,  if  you  want  to  see  her,  you 
can  go  home  at  once.  But  perhaps  you 
may  condescend  to  talk  to  me  a  little 
while  ? " 

"  I  must  see  Amy,  please,"  he  said. 
He  had  a  way  of  putting  people  aside  so 
gently  and  peremptorily  that  Mrs.  Paul, 
who  was  not  a  yielding  person,  never 
dreamed  of  protesting. 
37 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

"  I  '11  tell  her.  But  she  really  can't 
come  down  for  ten  minutes.  Do  you 
mind  waiting  ? " 

"Very  much,"  he  said  smiling.  "Tell 
her  to  come  down  just  as  she  is,  and  let 
me  see  her  frock." 

"  Indeed,  she  shan't  do  anything  of 
the  sort,"  said  Mrs.  Paul,  with  indigna 
tion  ;  but  relented  to  the  extent  of  let 
ting  him  have  the  library  to  himself,  and 
going  upstairs  to  send  the  girl  to  him. 

Amy  came  floating  in  with  a  snowy 
gleam  and  rustle,  and  stood  before  him, 
bidding  him  not  to  dare  to  touch  her ; 
though,  indeed,  being  a  mere  man,  he 
was  far  too  uncomfortably  awed  to  think 
of  taking  this  glorious  white  creature  into 
his  poor  human  arms. 

"  You  are  magnificent,  but  you  are  not 
Amy,"  he  said  ;  "  do  get  on  some  com 
mon  clothes.  I  'm  afraid  of  you." 

"That  is  as  it  should  be,  sir  !  "  she  told 
him.  "  I  shall  dress  like  this  every  day  if 
it  keeps  you  obedient.  If  I  had  had  on 
my  wedding-dress  last  night,  you  would 
not  have  dared  not  to  stay  to  dinner 
when  I — wanted  you." 
38 


T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

Her  look,  through  the  mist  of  tulle, 
of  soft  reproach  and  challenge,  was  too 
much  for  fear,  and  he  boldly  kissed  her ; 
which  made  her  protest,  and  fly  from 
further  risk  of  crushing  the  bravery  of 
her  wedding-day.  When  she  came  back 
again,  in  a  blue  cotton  gown,  trig  and 
pretty,  with  a  bunch  of  pansies  in  her 
belt,  there  was,  fortunately,  nothing  to 
be  hurt  by  being  crushed. 

There  was  a  moment  of  tender  and  pas 
sionate  silence.  His  errand  faded  from 
William  West's  mind  ;  the  reality  of  life 
was  here !  his  past  was  no  more  to  him 
than  the  eggshell  is  to  the  eagle.  So 
when,  later,  leaning  forward  in  his  chair, 
holding  her  hand  in  his,  looking  into  her 
pure  eyes,  he  began  to  speak,  it  was  al 
most  casually.  Before  the  great  fact  of 
human  love,  the  question  of  telling  her 
or  not  telling  her  of  that  old  dead  and 
buried  sin  was  suddenly  unimportant,  — 
they  loved  each  other  ! 

"  Dear,"  he  said,   "  I  Ve  come  to  tell 
you  something.    What  you  said  last  night 
about  having  no  reserves  put  it  into  my 
head.     I  had  forgotten  it." 
39 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS  BLISS 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  man  that 
there  was  no  preamble  ;  his  words  were 
simple,  and  he  was  perfectly  matter-of- 
fact  and  unanxious  ;  so  much  so  that  Amy 
laughed. 

"  Were  you  a  year-old  criminal  ?  Well, 
tell  me  at  once !  I  may  reconsider,  you 
know." 

There  was  something  in  the  assurance 
of  her  gayety  that  jarred  a  little,  and  he 
said  seriously :  — 

"  It  is  a  wrongdoing  of  my  youth, 
Amy.  I  'm  not  sure  that  it  is  not  selfish 
to  tell  you  about  it ;  but  I  can't  bear  the 
feeling  of  holding  anything  back  from 
you." 

An  answering  gravity  came  into  the 
girl's  face,  but  she  smiled. 

"Tell  me  anything;  I  am  not  afraid 
to  hear ! " 

Her  innocent  pride  gave  him  a  mo 
ment  of  sharp  discomfort.  Curiously 
enough,  what  he  had  to  tell  her  had 
not  connected  itself,  in  his  mind,  with 
personal  embarrassment ;  it  had  been 
too  remote  from  himself.  He  found 
40 


'TIS   FOLLY  TO   BE   WISE 

himself  hesitating  for  a  word,  and 
grasping  after  that  indifference  to  all 
but  Love  which  he  had  felt  but  a  mo 
ment  before. 

"Perhaps  I  am  a  fool  to  tell  you,"  he 
began;  "it  may  make  you  unhappy, 
and"- 

A  startled  look  came  into  Amy's 
eyes ;  then  the  color  flooded  up  into 
her  face.  She  lifted  her  head  with  a 
beautiful,  imperious  gesture,  and  stopped 
him  with  a  word. 

"I  —  understand.  Don't  tell  me.  I 
—  understand."  She  bit  her  lip  as  she 
spoke,  and  her  eyelids  quivered  as 
though  the  tears  had  risen  suddenly. 

"  You  understand  ?  "  he  repeated,  in 
a  puzzled  voice;  "do  you  mean  you 
don't  want  me  to  tell  you  ? " 

"William,"  she  said,  in  a  low  voice, 
"  I  do  not  think  a  woman  has  any  busi 
ness  with  a  good  man's  life  in  the  past ; 
if  —  he  was  not  good.  I  am  not  a  young 
girl.  I  am  old  enough  to  know  that  a 
man's  life  and  a  girl's  life  are  —  different ; 
but  don't  tell  me.  I  —  love  you.  Don't 
41 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

tell  me."  She  trembled  as  she  spoke, 
and  then  her  eyes  sought  his,  filled  with 
love  and  grief. 

A  wave  of  tenderness  made  his  whole 
face  melt  and  quiver.  He  murmured 
something  of  his  undesert  of  such  love 
as  this :  — 

"  You  are  not  like  other  women,"  he 
told  her,  as  every  lover  has  told  his  mis 
tress  since  the  sun  first  shone  on  lovers. 
"That  sin,  the  mean  woman  does  not 
forgive.  And  yet  it  is  so  much  more 
pardonable  than  some  other  sins  !  More 
pardonable,  dear,  than  what  I  want  to  tell 
you." 

She  drew  a  quick  breath  and  smiled. 
"Ah,"  she  said,  "I'm  glad  it  is  not 
that ! "  Her  relief  was  so  apparent  that 
he  realized  how  austerely  sweet  her  face 
had  been  as  she  forgave  him. 

"  Go  on  and  tell  me,"  she  said  ;  "  I  am 
not  afraid  to  hear  anything  now." 

"That  would  have  been  the  hardest 
thing  to  forgive?"  he  asked  her.  She 
flashed  a  look  of  pride  at  him. 

"The  things  I  could  not  forgive,  you 
could  not  do  !  " 

42 


'TIS  FOLLY  TO  BE  WISE 

This  made  him  glow.  After  all,  who 
would  not  confess  anything,  to  be  met 
by  such  confident  love  as  this  ? 

"This  happened  long  ago,  Amy; 
when  I  was  nineteen.  I  forged  a  check 
for  five  hundred  dollars." 

"  Forged ! "  Her  lips  fell  apart ;  she 
sat  staring  at  him. 

He  was  holding  her  hand,  lifting  it 
to  his  lips  sometimes,  and  looking  at  it 
as  it  lay  in  his.  He  went  on,  quietly :  — 

"  It  was  when  I  was  at  college ;  I 
needed  money ;  and  —  poor,  desperate, 
wicked,  silly  young  man  —  I  forged  Pro 
fessor  Wilson's  name.  I  don't  know 
what  I  supposed  would  become  of  me 
when  it  was  found  out.  And  I  don't 
know  what  would  have  become  of  me, 
but  Henry  Wilson  died  before  the  month 
was  out,  and  so,  by  some  strange  chance, 
it  never  was  discovered.  If  it  had  been 
.r— well,  you  and  I  would  not  have  been 
here  to-day.  Human  justice  would  have 
interposed  before  Divine  mercy" —  He 
looked  up  with  a  solemn  elation  which 
seemed  to  put  self  out  of  his  mind.  "  I 
might  have  gone  lower  and  lower  1  Who 
43 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

can  say?  It  was  an  easy  thing  to  do, 
for  I  was  his  secretary,  and  he  trusted 
me.  That,  of  course,  was  the  most  hor 
rible  part  of  what  I  did,  the  part  that 
now  seems  to  me  incomprehensible  — 
the  broken  trust !  Well,  of  course,  I 
made  reparation,  as  I  called  it,  out  of  the 
money  he  left  me.  I  gave  away  many 
times  the  amount  I  stole;  but  it  was 
only  because  I  was  scared  at  the  risk  I 
had  run,  and  the  thought  of  it  harassed 
me.  It  was  a  sort  of  expedient  morality, 
you  know;  a  sort  of  bargain  with  my 
conscience  for  peace  of  mind.  Then, 

about   a  year  afterwards,  I  met  X . 

I  heard  him  preach,  and  life  changed. 
How  extraordinary  it  seems  to  look  back 
upon  it  now !  Then  I  repented.  Before, 
I  had  only  reformed.  That  was  when  I 
entered  the  divinity  school.  But  just 
think,  Amy,  just  think  of  the  difference  ! 
How  life  might  have  gone  —  yet  here  I 
am  to-day,  your  lover,  your  husband. 
Oh,  the  mercy  of  God  !  " 

He  was  deeply  moved.  He  got  up 
and  walked  the  length  of  the  room. 
Amy  Sat  silently  looking  down  at  her 

44 


T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE  WISE 

hands  in  her  lap.     When  he  came  back, 
his  eyes  were  full  of  peace. 

"  That  is  all,  dearest ;  now  we  will 
forget  it.  You  know  my  life  as  you  do 
your  own." 

"  Forget  it  ? "  she  repeated,  with  a 
sudden,  sobbing  laugh,  that  tore  at  the 
man's  heart. 

"  Amy !  dearest !  have  I  shocked  you 
so  ?  Remember,  it  was  twenty-three 
years  ago  ;  I  was  only  a  boy.  Let  me 
tell  you  how  it  was  :  I  was  madly  in  love 
with  a  woman ;  at  least,  it  was  not  love, 
but  I  thought  it  was ;  she  fascinated  me, 
and"  — 

"  Oh,  go  on  —  go  on !  "  she  inter 
rupted,  hoarsely;  "as  if  I  cared  about 
that ! " 

He  tried  to  take  her  hand,  but  she 
made  a  pretense  of  arranging  the  flowers 
in  her  belt ;  her  head  was  turned  a  little 
from  him.  He  leaned  forward,  with  a 
grave  authority  to  command  her  atten 
tion,  took  the  pansies  from  her,  and  held 
them  in  his  hand. 

"I   was  possessed  to  marry  her.     Of 
course,   she  would  not    look   at  me  — 
45 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

a  penniless,  charity  student.  But  I 
strained  every  nerve  to  win  her.  It  was 
the  old  story.  She  took  my  flowers,  or 
theatre  tickets,  or  anything  I  could  give 
her.  Curious,  the  mercenariness  of  the 
woman  did  not  revolt  me!  But  I  was 
mad  about  her.  I  thought,  at  last,  that 
if  I  had  money  I  could  give  her  some 
jewels  she  wanted,  and  perhaps  she 
would  accept  me.  That  was  how  it 
came  about.  She  took  the  diamonds, 
and  eloped  with  a  married  man  two  days 
afterwards." 

As  he  told  the  story,  the  grossness  of 
it  all  came  over  him,  —  the  offense  to  the 
exquisite  delicacy  of  the  girl  beside  him. 

"  But  I  ought  not  to  have  told  you 
this,"  he  stammered. 

"What?"  she  said  dully.  "About 
the  woman  ?  Oh,  as  if  that  mattered ! " 
She  turned  from  him  sharply,  putting  the 
back  of  her  hand  against  her  lips  as 
though  to  hide  their  quiver. 

Then  she  burst   out :   "  Oh,  why   did 

you  tell  me  ?    Why  ?  why  ?     Oh,  I  wish 

you  had  not  told  me ! "     She  shook  from 

head  to  foot.     "  But  it  will  make  no  dif- 

46 


T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

f erence !  I  will  not  let  it  make  any  differ 
ence.  I  am  going  to  marry  you.  Only 
—  /  never  knew  you  !  " 

Those  most  terrible  words,  those  words 
with  which  Love  destroys  itself,  came 
like  a  blow  between  the  eyes.  He  grew 
very  pale.  " '  Not  make  any  differ 
ence  '  ? "  he  repeated,  blankly,  "  why, 
what  difference  could  it  make  ?  " 

She  stopped  crying,  suddenly,  and 
stood,  panting,  steadying  herself  by  her 
hands  upon  his  breast,  and  staring  at 
him.  There  was  something  almost  ter 
rifying  in  this  sudden  pause  and  in  her 
burning  look. 

"  It 's  the  one  thing,"  she  said,  "  don't 
you  see  ?  that  lasts.  It  is  n't  like  —  other 
things." 

"  But  it  was  not  I,"  he  said,  mechan 
ically.  "  Not  I,  the  man  you  —  you 
thought  you  knew.  It  was  a  boy,  twenty- 
three  years  ago.  Amy,  Amy  !  Twenty- 
three  years  ago  ! " 

She  did  not  listen  ;  she  kept  repeating 
to  herself :  "  It  shall  make  no  difference. 
I  will  not  let  it  make  any  difference." 
Alas,  it  was  not  for  her  to  say !  The 

47 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

difference  was  made;  the  jewel  crushed 
under  foot  is  no  more  a  jewel ;  the  rose 
thrown  into  the  fire  is  no  more  a  rose. 
The  stained  human  soul  is  no  more  the 
innocent  human  soul. 

"But  you  must  listen  to  me,  Amy," 
he  said.  "  No,  I  will  not  speak  until  you 
are  calm.  Sit  down.  Look  at  me.  Now, 
listen  to  what  I  have  to  say."  He  spoke 
slowly  and  gently,  as  one  does  to  a  ter 
rified,  unreasonable  child. 

"  Dear,  I  had  forgotten  it.  So  little  is 
it  a  part  of  my  life  that  I  had  forgotten 
it.  When  I  remembered  it  last  night,  it 
was  with  a  sense  of  astonishment,  a  sense 
of  pity  for  the  mad  boy  who  did  it.  I 
had  no  personal  shame,  —  it  seemed  to 
belong  to  some  one  else,  whom  I  watched 
with  sorrow  and  indignation.  I  do  not 
believe  that  to-day,  more  than  twenty 
years  afterwards,  I  have  any  business  to 
think  of  it." 

"  Then  why  did  you  tell  me  ? "  she  said 
wearily.  "Oh,  don't  talk  about  it  any 
more.  I  am  going  to  forget  it.  Good- 
by.  I  am  going  upstairs.  I  have  a  head 
ache.  Good-by." 

48 


T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

She  let  her  hand  slip  listlessly  out  of 
his,  and  left  him  standing,  blankly,  his 
lips  parted  for  another  protest,  and  the 
flowers  from  her  belt  between  his  fingers. 


V 

As  he  went  out  past  the  drawing-room 
door,  Mrs.  Paul  called  to  him  :  — 

"  Do  come  here  a  moment,  Mr.  West. 
Is  n't  Amy  pretty  in  her  wedding-dress  ? 
You  really  must  tell  me  what  to  do  about 
something.  There  is  a  family  "  —  and 
she  entered  upon  a  puzzling  question  of 
relief  work,  her  forehead  gathering  into 
a  frown,  yet  with  her  kind  eyes  denying 
the  severe  common-sense  of  her  state 
ment,  that  if  a  man  will  not  work  neither 
shall  he  eat. 

"  But  you  see  we  can't  let  the  children 
go  hungry,"  she  ended. 

The  consideration  of  other  people's 
weaknesses  and  wickedness  gave  William 
West  time  to  get  his  breath ;  he  threw 
himself  into  the  question  with  keen  and 
intelligent  sympathy.  He  pointed  out 
this ;  he  suggested  that ;  he  cleared  the 
49 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

puzzle  out  of  Mrs.  Paul's  face,  and  all 
the  time  he  was  half  deafened  by  a  clam 
oring  suspicion  :  "  Have  I  been  a  fool  ? 
She  will  never  forget  it !  It  will  always 
be  between  us.  I  Ve  been  a  cowardly 
fool." 

"  Well,  that 's  all  settled,"  said  Mrs. 
Paul,  with  an  air  of  relief  ;  "  now  tell  me, 
what  day  shall  I  have  Amy's  things  sent 
to  the  rectory?  And  shall  I  take  the 
silver  from  the  bank  the  day  before  you 
arrive  ?  Is  it  safe  to  leave  it  at  your 
house  ?  I  hate  the  responsibility  of  other 
people's  silver !  " 

"Oh,  certainly,  yes,"  he  answered, 
suddenly  absent ;  and,  with  a  curt  good- 
by,  left  her. 

Somehow  or  other,  he  hardly  knew 
how,  he  got  through  the  day.  There 
was  a  service  in  the  afternoon,  and  there 
were  other  people's  affairs  and  sorrows 
to  remember;  fortunately,  there  always 
is  duty  for  us  poor  human  creatures  as  a 
refuge  from  our  thoughts  !  Duties  to  be 
done  saved  William  West  from  desper 
ately  going  back  to  Amy  to  explain.  For 
he  was  guilty  of  the  impulse  of  "  expla- 
50 


'TIS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

nation,"  the  babble  with  which  the  weak 
mind  is  forever  annotating  its  remarks  or 
its  opinions. 

Well,  the  day  passed.  In  spite  of  a 
craving  to  see  Amy  that  was  almost  ago 
nizing,  he  held  on  to  his  common-sense, 
and  left  her  to  herself.  In  the  evening, 
his  lawyer  came  in,  bringing  some  papers 
in  regard  to  certain  property  which  it  was 
the  minister's  intention  to  make  over  to 
his  wife,  and  the  looking  these  over,  and 
the  business  talk,  was  a  relief  to  him. 
He  began  to  feel  that  he  had  taken 
Amy's  perturbation  much  too  seriously ; 
it  would  be  all  right;  she  would  see 
things  clearly  when  the  first  dismay  had 
passed.  He  thought,  tenderly,  that  he 
must  not  let  her  feel  any  regret  for  hav 
ing  for  a  moment  shown  him  her  pain  at 
what  he  had  told  her.  Her  pain  was 
only  part  of  her  exquisite  goodness,  that 
goodness  which  held  her,  remote  and 
lovely,  like  some  pure  and  luminous  star, 
so  far  above  the  sordid  meannesses  and 
wickednesses  of  common  life  that  she 
could  not  understand  them ;  perhaps 
even  she  could  not  pity  them.  Only 
5* 


WHERE  IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

the  sinlessness  which  was  in  all  points 
tempted  like  as  we  are  can  at  once  im^ 
derstand  and  pity  ;  his  thought,  chas 
tened  and  passionate,  fled  back  to  his 
Master  for  comfort,  —  yet  there  was  no 
reproach  of  Amy  in  his  mind. 

It  must  have  been  after  ten,  as  he  and 
Mr.  Woodhouse  sat  before  the  broad 
writing-table,  with  the  litter  of  papers 
and  memoranda  before  them,  that  John 
Paul  suddenly  burst  into  the  room. 

The  senior  warden's  strong,  kind  face 
was  flushed;  he  was  plainly  profoundly 
disturbed  and  upset. 

"  West "  -  he  said  explosively,  and 
stopped,  seeing  that  they  were  not  alone. 
"  My  dear  fellow,"  he  began  again,  stam 
mering  with  agitation,  "  can  I  see  you  a 
moment  ?  A  matter  of  business,  Wood- 
house,  if  you  don't  mind.  Can  we  go 
into  another  room,  West  ? " 

But  the  lawyer  protested  that  he  was 
just  about  to  go  home.  "  I  have  married 
a  wife  ;  you  '11  see  how  it  is  yourself,  Billy, 
pretty  soon !  Lois  allows  me  twenty 
minutes  leeway  of  the  hour  I  name  to 
get  home,  and  if  I  'm  not  back  then,  she 
52 


'TIS   FOLLY   TO  BE   WISE 

threatens  to  send  a  policeman  after  me. 
Good-night.  Good-night,  John."  And 
he  went  whistling  off  into  the  night. 

The  minister  had  not  spoken. 

"Look  here,"  John  Paul  said,  as  the 
front  door  banged,  "  what  under  the  sun 
is  this  business  ?  Good  Lord,  West, 
Amy  's  sent  you  a  letter  —  Kate  told  me 
to  break  it  to  you,  but  I  —  confound  it, 
man — go  and  read  it.  The  girl's  crazy. 
Go  and  read  it.  What  are  we  going  to 
do  ? " 

Without  a  word  William  West  took 
the  letter  and  read  it,  standing  facing 
Mr.  Paul.  ("  It  looked,"  John  Paul  told 
his  wife  afterwards,  "  as  though  he  died, 
then  and  there.") 

"  You  were  right  to  tell  me  —  only 
please — please  dorit  make  me  marry 
you.  I  cannot.  I  could  never  forget. 
If  it  were  anything  else  —  anything  else 
—  it  would  be  different ;  but  theft  —  ok, 
how  cruel  I  am  to  say  that  !  but  I  cannot 
marry  you.  There  's  no  tise  talking  about 
forgiveness.  I  dont  want  you  to  forgive 
me.  I  want  you  to  hate  me  ;  then  you 
S3 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

will  suffer  less.  Hate  me.  I  Jm  not  worth 
anything  else.  Pm  going  home  to-mor- 
row.  It  can  be  said  I  am  ill,  and  the 
wedding  is  put  off.  I  am  ill  ;  it  wont  be 
a  lie.  Please  dont  ask  to  see  me.  I  can 
not  see  you.  Forgive  me.  A." 

William  West  sat  down,  folding  the 
letter  between  his  fingers. 

"There's  nothing  to  be  said."  He 
spoke  very  quietly.  Then  he  opened  the 
letter  again,  and  looked  down  at  it. 

"West,  for  God's  sake,"  John  Paul 
entreated  him  ;  "  listen,  man  !  don't  take 
it  like  that.  The  girl  is  out  of  her  mind. 
Here,  pull  yourself  together  !  It  's  a 
passing  whim  ;  you  will  bring  her  to  her 
senses  as  soon  as  you  see  her." 

"  She  will  not  see  me,"  he  said.  As 
he  spoke  his  eye  caught  the  headlines  of 
the  deed  of  gift,  and  he  read  them  ab 
sently  :  — 


3n&entttte  made  this  -  day  of 
-  ,  Anno  Domini  18  —  ,    Witnesseth  :  that 
William    West,  the  grantor,  for  divers  good 
and  valuable  considerations   to  him  moving^ 
54 


'T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

has  ^  and  by  these  presents  does  give,  grant,  and 
convey  "  — 

The  fold  in  the  deed  hid  the  rest. 

"She's  got  to  see  you!"  John  Paul 
said  angrily.  "What's  the  matter  with 
her  ?  Is  she  out  of  her  senses  ?  All  I 
know  is  what  Kate  told  me.  She  asked 
me  to  bring  you  the  letter.  She  said 
Amy  had  broken  her  engagement.  You 
could  have  knocked  me  over  with  a 
straw.  She  would  n't  give  any  reasons. 
But  I  'm  touched  by  this  business.  If 
a  woman  in  my  household  suddenly  for 
gets  honor  and  common  decency,  I'm 
touched  by  it !  Unless  you  Ve  given  her 
cause  ? " 

He  walked  up  and  down,  breathing 
hard,  his  hands  thrust  into  his  pockets, 
jingling  his  latchkeys  for  the  mere  relief 
of  doing  something.  William  West  put 
the  little  note  into  his  pocket. 

"  I  Ve  given  her  cause,"  he  said. 

His  senior  warden  stopped  in  front  of 

him,  and  looked  at  him  critically.  "  You  're 

lying  to  me.     I  know  you  !     It 's  a  girl's 

whim,  and  I  'm  touched  by  it,  I  tell  you. 

55 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

She  *s  a  member  of  my  family.  I  shall 
see  her  (she  wouldn't  see  me  before  I 
started  here),  and  straighten  this  busi 
ness  out.  Kate  is  nearly  dead  with  it. 
My  wife  looked  like  a  ghost  when  she 
came  and  told  me  —  and  the  wedding  day 
after  to-morrow !  No  ;  I  'm  going  to 
straighten  this  thing  out.  What  I  want 
you  to  do  is  to  tell  me,  man  to  man,  what 
started  it  ? " 

"Amy  is  perfectly  justified,"  William 
West  said  dully.  "  I  told  her  this  morn 
ing  that  I  had  committed  a  forgery." 

"A  —  ?"  John  Paul  sat  down,  his 
mouth  open,  his  plump  hands  on  his 
knees,  his  eyes  starting  from  his  head. 

"You  are  out  of  your  mind  !  " 

William  West  laughed  shortly. 

"I  think,  perhaps,  I  was  when  I  told 
her.  Yes  ;  I  was  a  fool.  It  was  twenty- 
three  years  ago  ;  I  had  just  about  forgot 
ten  it.  When  I  remembered,  I  told  her. 
It  was  too  much  for  her.  She  is  right 
to  stop  now.  If  she  can  throw  me  over, 
thank  Heaven  she  has  done  so  !  " 

The  bitterness  of  it  burst  out  in  that 
last  sentence.  Then,  quietly,  he  told 
56 


'TIS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

Amy's  cousin  the  story  of  that  long- 
buried  youth.  When  it  was  done,  John 
Paul  said  huskily  :  — 

"West,  I  don't  know  what  to  think 
of  your  telling  her;  but  I  know  what 
to  think  of  you.  And  I  know  what  to 
think  of  Amy." 

William  West  said  nothing;  he  took 
the  little  note  out  of  his  pocket  and 
turned  it  over  and  over. 

("He  seemed  to  go  to  pieces  before 
my  eyes,"  John  Paul  told  his  wife.  "  I 
tell  you,  Kate,  I  saw  him  lose  his  moral 
grip  !  Poor  West  —  poor  fellow !  ") 

Mr.  Paul  sat  helplessly  looking  at  his 
clergyman,  until  he  had  a  sense  of  in 
decency  in  watching  the  suffering  of 
this  silent  human  creature.  Then  he 
said  vaguely :  — 

"  I  suppose  you  want  me  to  clear  out  ? 
But  just  tell  me ;  what  do  you  want  me 
to  do  ?  " 

"  Nothing." 

"But  don't  you  mean  to  make  any 
effort  to  bring  her  to  her  senses  ? "  burst 
out  the  other. 

"There's  nothing  to  be  done,"  the 
57 


WHERE   IGNORANCE   IS   BLISS 

lover  said.  "  It 's  over  —  don't  you 
see?" 

"  It 's  not  over,"  insisted  Amy's  cousin ; 
"I  shall  see  her;  this  thing  can't  go 
on.  I  '11  send  for  you ;  you  are  well 
rid  of  her;  it  will  be  all  right,  I" — 
Storming  and  protesting  and  contradict 
ing  himself,  he  went  out  of  the  rectory, 
scarcely  noticing  that  his  host  saw  him 
to  the  door,  and  let  him  out,  in  absolute 
silence. 

Then  William  West  went  back  and 
locked  himself  into  his  library. 


VI 

The  senior  warden  of  St.  James  was 
wrong  when  he  said  that  his  minister  lost 
his  moral  grip.  There  was,  no  doubt,  a 
time  of  upheaval  and  shock,  a  staggering 
under  a  calamity  which  seemed  to  have 
no  moral  excuse,  to  be  only  a  senseless 
shattering  of  a  human  life. 

But   he  got   his   balance    again.     He 

made  no  effort  to  see  Amy.     This  was 

partly  to  spare  her,  and  partly  from  a 

sense  of  the  futility   of  argument ;   the 

58 


'T  IS   FOLLY   TO   BE   WISE 

thing  was  done ;  if  she  married  him  ten 
times  over,  it  would  not  be  the  same. 
As  she  said,  she  had  never  known  him ; 
and  perhaps  he  had  never  known  her. 
But,  for  that  matter,  who  of  us  knows 
the  other  ?  The  question  is,  is  it  worth 
while  to  try  to  attain,  or  to  bestow,  such 
knowledge  ?  Gossip,  of  course,  had  run 
riot  when  it  was  known  that  he  had  been 
jilted ;  but  gossip,  after  it  reaches  a 
certain  point  of  insult  and  falsehood, 
becomes  a  source  of  amusement  to  its 
victims.  West,  with  his  delicate  sense 
of  humor,  found  other  people's  opinions 
of  his  sufferings  not  without  interest.  It 
being  nobody's  business  but  his  own, 
only  three  people  besides  Miss  Town- 
send  and  himself  knew  the  facts — the 
Pauls  and  his  own  lawyer ;  so  no  light 
was  thrown  upon  the  subject  to  Mercer, 
which  seethed  and  bubbled,  and  made  it 
self  wildly  ludicrous.  The  minister  went 
away  after  that  first  fury  of  parish  ex 
citement  was  over,  and  came  back  in 
four  months,  quite  brown,  with  a  good 
appetite,  and  several  very  interesting 
pieces  of  tapestry  which  he  had  picked 
59 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

up  on  the  other  side.  He  dined  a  little 
less  frequently  at  the  Pauls',  and  was 
never  once  reminded  that  Mrs.  Paul  had 
been  instrumental  in  bringing  him  to 
Mercer. 

He  became,  perhaps,  a  little  more  of  a 
man's  man  ;  a  little  more  impatient  with 
his  feminine  correspondents  ;  a  little  less 
polite  to  the  old  ladies,  who  thought  him 
less  good-looking  "  since  his  disappoint 
ment."  But  he  took  a  deep  and  passion 
ate  hold  upon  affairs  ;  the  conditions  of 
labor,  the  hideous  problems  of  vice  ;  the 
reformation  of  the  sordid  politics  of  the 
small  city  in  which  he  lived,  —  these 
things  filled  his  life.  Were  they  enough  ? 
Who  knows !  We  make  husks  into  bread 
when  the  soul  starves. 

As  for  Amy,  that  is  another  story. 

It  was  nearly  two  years  after  this  that 
John  Paul  walked  home  one  night  with 
Mr.  Woodhouse,  who  was  a  fellow  vestry 
man  of  St.  James.  They  had  been  sit 
ting  smoking  by  William  West's  fireside, 
talking  over  a  strike  which  was  on  in  one 
of  the  mills,  where  it  seemed  as  though 
60 


'TIS   FOLLY  TO   BE    WISE 

the  rights  lay  with  the  strikers ;  a  fact 
which  these  gentlemen  believed  to  be 
unusual.  It  was  nearly  midnight  when 
they  left  the  rectory  and  went  along  the 
empty,  echoing  street  together. 

"It  strikes  me,"  said  Mr.  Paul,  "that 
you  had  n't  much  to  say  for  yourself  to 
night,  Woodhouse.  You  're  the  canniest 
fellow  about  giving  an  opinion  !  Did  n't 
you  want  to  commit  yourself  ?  " 

"  I  have  n't  any  opinion  yet,"  said  the 
other  man  slowly ;  "  and,  somehow,  I  got 
to  thinking — I  say,  John,  after  all,  what 
do  you  make  of  West's  telling  Miss 
Townsend  that  matter  ? " 

"  I  think  she  did  n't  know  which  side 
her  bread  was  buttered,"  John  Paul  said 
gruffly. 

"  Oh,  that 's  another  question,"  the 
lawyer  said.  "  I  think  almost  any  woman 
is  too  good  for  almost  any  man.  I  won 
der  they  don't  all  think  better  of  it  at  the 
last  moment,  and  throw  us  over !  " 

"How  long  have  you  been  married, 
Gifford  ? "  the  older  man  inquired  cyni 
cally.  "  I  '11  tell  you  what  Kate  says  : 
Kate  says  if  Amy  could  throw  him  over, 
61 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS  BLISS 

she  ought  to  have  had  the  chance  to.  So 
she  thinks  West  ought  to  have  told 
her." 

"That's  like  saying,  if  there  is  a 
chance  of  breaking  your  neck  by  taking 
some  preposterous  leap,  take  it,"  the 
lawyer  commented.  "  But  as  I  look  back 
at  it  now,  and  see  how  it  has  aged  Billy, 
and  —  well,  hardened  him  a  little,  I  think 
—  it  seems  such  an  unnecessary  calam 
ity  ;  such  a  blunder  !  And  yet " 

"Kate  has  views  about  heredity,  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing,"  Mr.  Paul  explained. 
"  She  says  a  woman  has  a  right  to  say 
her  children  shan't  have  a  —  shady  char 
acter  for  a  father.  That  was  too  much 
for  me ;  I  don't  generally  contradict  my 
Boss;  it  isn't  peaceful.  But  that  was 
too  much  for  me!  Billy  West  shady! 
I  gave  my  wife  a  piece  of  my  mind.  I 
tell  you,  Woodhouse,  women  are  hard." 

"  Well,  but  there 's  something  in  that," 
the  lawyer  protested.  "  A  woman  has 
not  only  a  right,  but  a  duty,  to  think 
of  her  children,  and  a  possible  moral 

taint "  — 

62 


T  IS    FOLLY   TO   BE    WISE 

"Moral  grandmother!"  John  Paul  broke 
in ;  "  West  is  one  man  in  a  hundred.  I 
think  he 's  well  rid  of  Amy :  I  told  him 
so  at  the  time.  Why,  look  here ;  a  man 
who  has  not  repented  of  his  sin  has  no 
inclination  to  confess  it.  And,  having 
repented  and  made  reparation,  confession 
becomes  a  mere  matter  of  expediency. 
Why,  good  heavens,  Gifford !  is  there  to 
be  no  escape  from  sin  ?  What 's  all  this 
talk  about  forgiveness  mean,  if  we  Ve  got 
to  rake  up  the  past  and  agonize  over  it 
as  long  as  we  live  ?  Is  n't  there  any 
statute  of  limitation  in  things  spiritual  ? 
I  don't  believe  any  large  mind  dwells  on 
its  sins,  any  more  than  on  its  virtues ! 
And  yet,"  he  ended,  suddenly  cooling, 
"I  swear  it  is  a  difficult  question,  the 
telling  or  not  telling  the  girl  you  are  go 
ing  to  marry." 

"  If  you  bring  it  down  to  expediency, 
it's  simple  enough,"  Gifford  Woodhouse 
said  ;  "  it  was  obviously  inexpedient. 
Even  if  she  had  married  him,  and  simply 
remembered,  would  either  of  them  have 
been  any  better  off?  Would  any  end 
63 


WHERE   IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS 

have  been  subserved  by  putting  such 
painful  knowledge  on  her  conscience  as 
well  as  his  own  ?  It  was  not  as  though 
there  was  a  lady  'with  nine  small  chil 
dren  and  one  at  the  breast '  somewhere 
round  the  corner  in  the  Past,  who  might 
turn  up  some  day.  That  sort  of  sin 
affects  the  relation  of  the  man  and  wo 
man,  and  it  may  be  simple  prudence  to; 
confess.  Though  I  think  there  is  a  ques 
tion,  even  there.  But  in  this  case  expe 
diency,  you  might  even  call  it  unselfish 
ness,  would  make  him  hold  his  tongue. 
The  only  thing  is,  perhaps  there  is  some 
thing  higher  than  expediency  ? " 

They  had  reached  Mr.  Paul's  door ;  he 
pitched  his  cigar  into  the  street  and  pulled 
out  his  keys,  shaking  them  on  the  end  of 
their  chain. 

"  You  mean,  abstractly,  is  it  right  or 
wrong,  under  circumstances  like  these, 
where  no  third  person  is  to  be  cleared  or 
benefited,  to  tell  ?  Does  honor  demand 
confession  ? " 

"Yes,"  said  the  vestryman ;  "was  it  a 
duty  to  speak,  or  a  duty  to  be  silent  ?  " 
64  ' 


'TIS   FOLLY  TO   BE   WISE 

There  was  a  moment's  silence. 

"  Was  West  a  fool  or  a  saint  ? "  insisted 
the  younger  man. 

"  I  '11  be  hanged  if  I  know,"  said  the 
senior  warden. 

65 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

I 

,HE  Rev.  Silas  Eaton  was  dead. 

It  was  May,  and  the  little  or 
chard  behind  the  parsonage  was 
like  a  white  and  perfumed  cloak  flung  on 
the  shoulder  of  a  bare  hillside  which  was, 
all  the  rest  of  it,  rocky  pasture.  Under 
the  trees,  and  in  the  shelter  of  the  stone 
walls,  the  grass  was  growing  green.  The 
apple  blossoms  were  just  beginning  to 
fall ;  in  any  breath  of  wind  single  petals, 
white,  stained  outside  with  crimson,  came 
down  in  flurries,  like  gusts  of  warm  and 
aromatic  snow.  There  was  a  stir  of  life 
everywhere.  In  the  parsonage  garden 
crown  imperials  had  pushed  their  strong 
stalks  through  the  damp  earth,  and  peo 
nies  were  reaching  up  long  slender  arms, 
each  with  its  red  curled  fist  of  leaves, 
reluctant  to  expand  until  certain  of  the 
66 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

sun.  The  ground  was  spongy  beneath 
the  foot,  and  there  were  small  springs 
bubbling  up  under  every  winter-bleached 
tuft  of  last  year's  grass.  The  air,  full  of 
the  scent  of  earth  and  growing  things, 
was  warm  and  sweet,  yet  with  an  edge 
of  cold  —  the  sword  of  frost  in  a  velvet 
scabbard. 

Life  —  life  :  and  in  the  upper  chamber 
of  the  parsonage  the  master  lay  dead. 

One  of  the  children  had  put  a  bunch  of 
apple  blossoms  on  the  table  at  the  head 
of  the  bed.  They  were  not  appropriate 
—  the  soft,  rosy  flowers  beside  the  hard 
face  there  on  the  pillow ;  the  face  with 
its  thatch  of  gray  hair  over  the  narrow, 
domelike  brow,  seamed  and  cut  with 
wrinkles ;  the  anxious,  melancholy  lips 
set  in  such  icy  and  eternal  indifference  — 
the  face  of  the  religious  egotist,  stamped 
with  inexorable  sincerity,  stern  and  cold 
and  mean.  Not  a  father's  face.  But  his 
daughter  had  put  her  handful  of  snowy 
flowers  on  the  pine  table,  their  little 
gnarled  black  stems  thrust  tightly  down 
into  a  tumbler  of  water.  And  then  she 
went  tiptoeing  out  of  the  silent  room. 
67 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

She  heard  her  mother's  little,  light  voice 
downstairs  in  the  parlor,  and  Elder 
Barnes's  low,  respectful  murmur  in  re 
sponse.  They  were  "making  the  ar 
rangements."  Esther's  heart  stood  still, 
not  with  grief,  but  with  misery  at  the 
strangeness  of  it  all  —  her  silent,  meek, 
obedient  mother  saying  what  should  or 
what  should  not  happen  to  —  father ! 

"And,  Mr.  Barnes,  if  it  will  not  be  a 
trouble,  will  you  find  out  for  me  how 
much  it  would  cost  to  send  a  telegram  to 
my  brother  in  Mercer  ?  " 

Esther,  leaning  over  the  banisters  in 
the  upper  hall,  opened  her  lips  with  as 
tonishment.  A  telegram !  It  gave  the 
child  a  sense  of  the  dreadful  importance 
of  this  May  day  as  nothing  else  had  done. 
The  thought  of  the  expense  of  it  came 
next,  sobering  that  curious  sense  of  ela 
tion  which  is  part  of  bereavement. 

"  Mother  ought  n't  to  do  that.  It  will 
cost  — oh,  it  will  cost  at  least  a  dol 
lar  ! " 

This  fifteen-year  old  Esther  had  a 
certain. grim  practicality,  born  of  a  child 
hood  in  a  minister's  family  on  five  hun- 
68 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

dred  dollars  a  year.  A  dollar !  And  that 
uncle  in  Mercer,  whom  she  had  never 
seen,  who  had  quarreled  with  her  mother 
because  she  married  her  father,  and  who 
was  so  rich  and  powerful  (according  to  a 
newspaper  paragraph  she  had  once  read) 
—  this  uncle,  who  had  had  no  connection 
with  them  in  all  these  years  —  what  was 
the  use  of  wasting  a  dollar  in  telegraph 
ing  him  ?  She  meant  to  say  so ;  and  yet, 
when  she  went  downstairs,  after  Elder 
Barnes  had  gone,  and  found  her  little 
mother  standing  at  the  window,  looking 
blankly  out  at  the  garden,  there  was  some 
thing  in  the  mild,  faded  face  that  kept 
the  girl  silent.  She  came  up  and  put  her 
strong  young  arm  about  her,  and  kissed 
her  softly. 

"  Mother,  won't  you  lie  down  ?  " 
"  No,  dear ;  I  am  not  tired.    Mr.  Barnes 
has  been  very  kind  in  telling  me  what 
must  be  .done.     I  do  hope  everything  will 
be  as  —  he  would  wish." 

They  did  not  speak  for  a  little  while, 

and   then   Esther   said,  in   a   low  voice, 

"  Mother,  I  don't  want  to  worry  you,  and 

»—  and  perhaps  it 's  very  soon  to  speak  of 

69 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

it,  but  have  you  thought  at  all  of  what  is 
going  to  become  of  us  ? " 

Her  mother  put  up  her  hand  with  a 
sort  of  shiver.  "  No,  no  ;  not  yet.  We 
must  n't  talk  of  that  yet.  Oh,  Esther,  he 
is  dead  !  Poor  Silas  —  poor  Silas  ! "  She 
caught  her  breath  like  a  child,  and  looked 
up  at  her  tall  daughter  in  a  frightened 
way. 

Esther  nodded  and  cried  a  little ;  then 
she  wiped  her  eyes,  and  said,  hesitating : 
"You're  going  to  get  a  crepe  veil,  aren't 
you,  mother,  and  a  black  dress  ?  And  I 
think  I  ought  to  have  a  black  dress." 

"  We  have  n't  any  money  for  new 
clothes,  Essie,"  Mrs.  Eaton  answered 
tremulously. 

"  But  I  think  we  ought  to  wear  black," 
Esther  protested.  "  It  is  n't  proper  not 
to." 

The  other  sighed  with  anxiety.  "I 
don't  see  how  we  can.  He  would  not 
wish  us  to  waste  the  money." 

They  were  very  intimate,   these  two ; 

for  each  had  found  the  other  a  shelter 

from  the  fierce  integrity  which  had  ruled 

the  family   life.     And   now  instinctively 

70 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

they  nestled  together,  panting  and  chirp 
ing  like  two  frightened  birds,  and  saying 
to  each  other,  "He  would  wish  this,  or 
that." 

But  he  was  dead,  and  the  face  of  life 
was  suddenly  changed  to  them  both. 
The  withdrawal  of  the  dominant  right 
eous  will  of  husband  and  father  made  an 
abrupt  silence  in  their  lives  —  a  silence 
which  was  as  overwhelming  in  its  way  as 
grief.  To  the  mother  it  was  as  though 
having  been  borne  helplessly  along  on 
some  powerful  arm,  she  had  been  sud 
denly  set  down  on  her  own  feet,  and  bid 
den  to  lead  and  carry  others.  Esther's 
frightened  question,  "What  is  going  to 
become  of  us  ? "  echoed  in  her  ears  like  a 
crash  of  bewildering  sound.  She  had  no 
answer ;  all  she  knew  was  that  she  must 
take  care  of  the  children  ;  work  for  them ; 
fight  for  them  —  poor  little  weak  crea 
ture  !  —  if  necessary.  She  was  thirty- 
five,  this  mother,  but  she  looked  much 
older.  Once  she  must  have  been  pretty ; 
one  knew  that  by  the  startled  softness 
of  her  hazel  eyes  and  the  delicately  cut 
pale  lips  ;  but  her  forehead,  rounded  like 
71 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

a  child's,  was  worn  and  full  of  lines, 
and  her  whole  expression  so  timid  and 
anxious  and  deprecating  that  one  only 
thought  of  what  her  life  must  have  been 
to  cut  so  deep  a  stamp  on  such  gentle 
and  vague  material.  It  had  been,  since 
her  marriage,  a  very  uneventful  life,  its 
keenest  excitement  the  making  both  ends 
meet  on  her  husband's  salary.  Before 
that  there  had,  indeed,  been  the  keen 
and  exciting  experience  of  marrying  in 
opposition  to  her  father's  command,  and 
being  practically  disowned  by  her  peo 
ple.  She  was  Lydia  Blair,  a  girl  of  good 
family,  gentle  and  dutiful,  as  girls  were 
expected  to  be  thirty  years  ago  —  one  of 
those  pleasant  girls  who  let  their  elders 
and  betters  think  for  them,  and  are  loved 
as  one  loves  comfortable  and  inanimate 
things.  And  then,  suddenly,  had  ap 
peared  this  harsh,  fiery,  narrow  New 
England  minister,  of  another  denomina 
tion,  of  another  temperament  —  for  that 
matter,  of  another  class ;  and  she  had 
developed  a  will  of  her  own  and  married 
him.  Why  ?  Everybody  who  knew  her 
asked,  "Why  ? "  Perhaps  afterwards  she 
72 


THE    HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

herself  asked  why  —  afterwards,  when  he 
became  so  intent  upon  saving  his  own 
soul  that  he  had  no  time  to  win  his  chil 
dren's  love  or  to  make  love  to  his  wife. 
By  the  time  he  came  to  die,  very  likely 
he  had  forgotten  he  ever  had  made  love 
to  her.  He  called  her  "Mrs.  Eaton," 
and  he  was  as  used  to  her  as  he  was  to 
his  battered  old  desk  or  his  worn  Bible. 
But  when  he  came  to  die,  he  lay  in  his 
bed  and  watched  her  as  he  had  not  done 
these  fifteen  years ;  and  once  he  said, 
when  she  brought  him  his  medicine, 
"  You  Ve  been  a  good  wife,  Mrs. 
Eaton  ; "  and  once,  "  You  're  very  kind, 
Lily."  But  this  was  at  the  end,  and  the 
doctor  said  his  mind  was  wandering. 
And  then  the  end  had  come,  in  the 
spring  night,  towards  dawn  ;  and  now  he 
was  lying  still,  as  indifferent  to  the  soft 
weather,  the  shower  of  apple  blossoms, 
the  two  children  whispering  about  the 
house,  the  wife  staring,  dry-eyed,  out  into 
the  sunshine  —  as  indifferent  as  he  al 
ways  had  been. 

Well,  well ;  he  was  a  good  man,  they 
said  ;  and  now  he  had  gone  to  find  the 
73 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

God  whom  he  had  defamed  and  vilified 
under  the  name  of  religion,  imputing  to 
Him  meanness  and  cruelty  and  revenge 
—  the  passions  of  his  own  poor  human 
nature. 

And  may  that  God  have  mercy  on  his 
soul ! 

II 

Robert  Blair  came  into  the  dining- 
room,  holding  the  "  dollar  telegram "  in 
his  hand.  His  wife  looked  up  at  him, 
smiling. 

"  It  is  really  shameful  the  way  business 
pursues  you  !  I  am  going  to  tell  Samuel 
to  burn  all  dispatches  that  come  here. 
Your  office  is  the  place  for  those  horrid 
yellow  papers." 

"  It  is  n't  business  this  time,  Nellie ; 
it  's  death." 

"  Oh,  Robert ! " 

"Oh,"  he  hastened  to  explain,  "it's 
nothing  that  touches  us.  My  sister 
Lydia's  husband  is  dead.  You  have 
heard  me  speak  of  my  sister  Lydia, 
have  n't  you  ?  It  was  long  before  your 
day,  you  baby,  that  she  married  him. 
74 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

Ah,  well,  what  a  pretty  girl  she  was  ! " 
He  sat  down,  shook  his  head  when  the 
man  offered  him  some  soup,  and  opened 
his  napkin  thoughtfully.  "Well,  he's 
dead.  He  was  a  most  objectionable  per 
son  "  — 

Mrs.  Blair  looked  at  the  butler's  back 
as  he  stood  at  the  sideboard,  and  raised 
her  eyebrows  ;  but  her  husband  went  on, 
a  wrinkle  like  a  cut  deepening  on  his 
forehead :  — 

"My  father  forbade  it  —  did  I  never 
tell  you  about  it  ?  —  but  Lydia,  who  had 
always  been  a  nonentity,  suddenly  ac 
quired  a  will,  and  married  him.  My  fa 
ther  never  forgave  her.  She  evidently 
did  n't  care  for  any  affection  that  did  n't 
include  him,  and  cut  herself  off  from  all 
of  us.  Of  course  I  'm  sorry  for  her  now ; 
but  I  don't  feel  that  I  have  anything  to 
reproach  myself  with."  He  tapped  the 
table  with  impatient  fingers,  and  told  the 
butler  that  he  did  n't  want  his  claret 
boiled.  "  Have  n't  you  any  sense,  Sam 
uel  ?  You  're  a  perfect  fool  about  wine ; 
here,  throw  that  out  of  the  window,  and 
get  me  a  fresh  bottle !  " 
75 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

Mrs.  Blair  was  a  beautiful  young  wo 
man,  who,  two  years  before,  had  married 
this  irascible,  successful,  dogmatic  man, 
and  (so  Mercer  said)  could  wind  him 
round  any  one  of  her  pretty  jeweled  fin 
gers  whenever  she  wanted  to.  He  cer 
tainly  was  very  much  in  love  —  and  so 
was  she,  though  her  particular  world 
never  believed  it,  alleging  that  she  was 
not  indifferent  to  the  loaves  and  fishes. 

But  the  fact  was  Mrs.  Blair  took  the 
loaves  and  fishes  with  a  childlike  delight 
which  meant  appreciation,  certainly,  but 
not  avarice.  She  enjoyed  her  wealth, 
and  her  life,  and  herself,  immensely  and 
openly;  and  that  was  her  charm  to  her 
husband,  a  man  immersed  in  large  affairs, 
sagacious,  powerful,  and  without  imagina 
tion.  He  was  a  cultivated  man,  because 
his  forbears  had  been  educated  people, 
of  sober,  comfortable  wealth  ;  hence  he 
had  gone  to  college,  like  other  young 
men  of  his  class,  and  had  traveled,  and 
had  acquired  an  intellectual,  or  rather  a 
commercial  knowledge  of  Art.  But,  un 
til  he  married,  every  instinct  was  for 
power,  and  the  making  of  money.  After 
76 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

that,  though  the  guiding  principle  re* 
mained  the  same,  a  sense  of  beauty  did 
awaken  in  him.  He  never  flagged  in  his 
fierce  and  joyous  and  cruel  passion  for 
getting;  but  he  delighted  in  his  wife  — 
perhaps  as  one  of  his  own  enormous  ma 
chines  might  have  delighted  in  a  ray  of 
sunlight  dancing  across  its  steel  shafts, 
and  flickering  through  the  thunderous 
whir  of  its  driving-wheel.  He  loaded 
the  girl  he  married  with  every  luxury; 
almost  immediately  she  found  she  had 
nothing  left  to  desire  —  from  dogs  to  dia 
monds,  houses,  yachts,  or  pictures.  She, 
poor  child,  realized  no  deprivation  in  see 
ing  every  wish  fulfilled,  and  thought  her 
self  the  luckiest  and  the  happiest  woman 
in  the  world.  Her  money,  combined  with 
a  good  deal  of  common-sense,  gave  her 
the  power  to  interfere  helpfully  in  the 
lives  of  less  fortunate  people.  She  called 
it  Philanthropy,  and  found  playing  Provi 
dence  to  the  halt,  the  maimed,  and  the 
blind  a  really  keen  interest.  Her  impulse 
was  always  to  "  manage  "  ;  and  so,  when 
her  husband,  frowning,  and  perhaps  a  lit 
tle  less  satisfied  with  himself  than  usual, 
77 


THE   HOUSE  OF   RIMMON 

began  to  talk  about  his  sister's  affairs, 
Mrs.  Blair  was  instantly  interested. 

"Of  course  her  husband's  death  will 
make  a  difference  in  her  income?"  she 
said,  as  they  went  upstairs  to  the  library. 
"  A  country  minister's  salary  does  n't 
amount  to  much  anyhow ;  but  "  — 

"Well,  she  made  her  bed,"  he  inter 
rupted  sharply ;  "  she  ought  to  be  willing 
to  lie  in  it !  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  of  course ;  but  now  the  man 
is  dead,  it 's  different.  I  know  you  want 
to  do  something  for  her,  you  are  so  gen 
erous." 

He  pulled  her  pretty  ear  at  that,  and 
told  her  she  was  a  flattering  little  hum 
bug.  "  What  do  you  want,  diplomat  ? 
You  '11  bankrupt  me  yet.  Am  I  to  build 
a  palace  for  Lily?  Look  here,  I  wrote 
that  West  Virginia  college  president  to 
day  and  told  him  I  'd  give  him  the  money 
he  wanted.  It 's  all  your  doing,  but  I 
get  the  name  of  a  great  educator." 

"Oh,  Robert,  how  good  you  are!     I 

think  that  ought  to  silence  the  people 

that  say  you  '  grind  the  face  of  the  poor.' 

I  saw  that  in  the  paper  to-day.     Beasts  ! 

78 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

and  you  are  so  generous !  I  tell  you  what 
I  want :  I  want  you  to  have  them  come 
here,  your  sister  and  the  children  "  — 

"  You  angel !  "  he  said.  "  No  ;  that 's 
dangerous.  We  might  n't  like  the  brats. 
The  boy's  name  is  Silas.  I  don't  think  I 
could  stand  a  cub  named  Silas.  But  the 
girl  would  n't  be  so  bad.  As  for  Lily  (we 
used  to  call  her  Lily  when  she  was  a  girl), 
she  is  one  of  those  gentle,  colorless  wo 
men,  all  virtue  and  no  opinions,  whom 
anybody  could  live  with.  Rather  a  fool, 
you  know.  But  we'll  have  them  come 
and  make  us  a  visit,  if  it  won't  bore  you. 
If  we  like  it,  we  can  prolong  it.  Any 
how,  I  '11  see  that  poor  Lil  has  a  decent 
income.  You  know,  my  father  didn't 
leave  her  a  cent.  The  old  gentleman 
said  he  would  n't  have  '  that  hell  -  fire 
Presbyterian  use  any  of  his  money  for 
his  damned  heathen  ! '  But  I  '11  look 
after  her  now." 

Thus  it  was  that  a  home  was  prepared 

for  Silas  Eaton's  widow ;  the  offer  of  it 

came  the  day  after  the  funeral,  when  she 

sat  down  to  face  the  future.     She  had 

79 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

gone  over  her  assets,  in  her  halting,  femi 
nine  way,  counting  up  the  dollars  on  her 
fingers,  and  subtracting  the  debts  with  a 
stubby  lead-pencil  on  the  back  of  an  old 
envelope ;  and  she  had  discovered  that 
when  all  the  expenses  of  the  funeral  were 
paid  she  would  have  in  the  bank  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars.  If  she 
could  manage  to  sell  her  husband's  very 
limited  library,  she  might  add  a  few  dol 
lars  to  that  sum ;  but  very  few. 

One  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars ! 
She  must  go  to  some  city,  and  go  to 
work,  so  that  Silas  and  Esther  might  be 
educated.  She  had  got  as  far  as  that 
when  her  brother's  letter  came.  He 
would  have  come  himself,  he  said,  but 
was  detained  by  an  annoying  strike  in 
one  of  his  rolling-mills,  and  so  wrote  to 
ask  her  to  come,  with  the  children,  and 
visit  him  for  a  little  while  ;  "  then  we  '11 
see  what  can  be  done ;  but  don't  worry 
about  ways  and  means.  I  will  see  to  all 
that." 

She  read  the  straightforward,  kindly 
words,  her  heart  beating  so  she  could 
scarcely  breathe.  Then  she  covered  her 
80 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

face  with  her  hands,  and  trembled  with 
excitement  and  relief.  "  Oh,"  she  said, 
"  the  children  won't  be  poor !  Robert 
will  take  care  of  us." 


Ill 

When  Mrs.  Eaton  went  to  Mercer,  the 
change  in  her  life  was  absolute  and  bewil 
dering.  Robert  Blair's  enormous  wealth 
was,  at  first,  simply  not  to  be  realized. 
The  subdued  and  refined  magnificence  of 
the  house  conveyed  nothing  to  his  sis 
ter's  mind,  because  she  had  no  standard 
of  value.  The  pictures  and  tapestries 
implied  not  money,  but  only  beauty  and 
joy,  for  she  had  never  dreamed  of  buying 
anything  but  food  and  clothes ;  so  how 
could  she  guess  that  all  the  money  of  all 
her  sixteen  years  on  a  minister's  salary 
would  not  have  purchased,  say,  the  small 
misty  square  of  canvas  that  held  in  one 
corner  a  wonderful  and  noble  and  peasant 
name  ? 

The  first  night  in  the  great  wainscoted 
dining-room,  with  a  man  bringing  un 
known  dishes  to  her  elbow,  with  candles 
Si 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

shining  on  elaborate  and  useless  pieces 
of  silver,  with  the  glow  of  firelight  flick 
ering  out  from  under  a  superb  chimney- 
piece  of  Mexican  marble,  and  dancing 
about  the  stately  and  dignified  room  — 
the  beauty  and  the  graciousness  and  the 
wonder  of  it  was  an  overwhelming  expe 
rience,  though  she  had  not  the  dimmest 
idea  of  the  fortune  it  represented  —  a 
fortune  notorious  and  envied  the  land 
over.  That  she  had  had  no  share  in  it 
until  now  did  not  wound  her  in  the  least ; 
she  was  grateful  for  the  warmth  and  the 
comfort  and  the  kindness,  now  they  had 
come ;  she  never  harked  back  to  the  pain 
ful  years  of  silence  and  forgetfulness. 

Her  brother  and  his  wife  watched  her, 
amused  and  interested;  her  dazzled  ad 
miration  of  everything  was  half  touching, 
half  droll.  But  what  a  confession  it  was  ! 
Eleanor  Blair  realized  this,  and  she  said 
to  herself,  warmly,  that  she  would  make 
up  to  Robert's  sister  for  the  past.  She 
was  in  her  element  in  arranging  her 
sister-in-law's  future  ;  she  made  a  dozen 
plans  for  her  in  the  first  week  ;  but  her 
husband  laughed  and  shook  his  head. 
82 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

"Wait,"  he  said;  " time  enough  when 
we  see  how  we  get  along." 

But  they  got  along  very  well.  The 
children,  after  the  first  shy  awkward 
ness  had  worn  off,  were  really  attractive. 
Silas,  an  eager  brown-eyed  boy  of  eleven, 
lovable  in  spite  of  his  name,  made  artless 
and  pretty  love  to  his  pretty  aunt,  who 
found  him  a  delightful  plaything.  "  The 
serious  Esther,"  as  her  uncle  called  her, 
was  a  friendly  little  creature,  when  one 
came  to  know  her ;  her  common-sense 
commended  her  to  Mr.  Blair,  and  her 
dressmaking  and  her  education  were  an 
immediate  interest  to  her  aunt. 

So  it  came  about  that  the  visit  was 
prolonged,  and  the  project  of  a  little  es 
tablishment  of  her  own  for  Mrs.  Eaton 
gradually  given  up ;  at  all  events,  for  the 
present.  It  was  very  satisfactory  as  it 
was.  The  house  was  so  big,  they  were 
not  in  the  way ;  and  Mrs.  Eaton's  mourn 
ing  kept  her  in  the  background  in  regard 
to  society  —  which  "was  just  as  well," 
Mrs.  Blair  admitted,  smiling  to  herself  — 
but  it  made  no  difference  in  her  useful 
ness.  She  was  really  quite  useful  in  one 
83 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

way  or  another;  she  could  write  an  in 
telligent  note  to  a  tradesman,  or  reply 
(by  formula)  to  a  begging  letter ;  so,  by 
and  by,  she  was  practically  her  sister-in- 
law's  secretary,  and  certainly  the  Blairs 
had  never  had  either  a  maid  or  a  butler 
who  could  begin  to  arrange  flowers  for 
a  dinner  party  as  Mrs.  Eaton  did.  She 
was  silent,  and  rather  vague,  but  always 
gentle,  and  ready  and  eager  to  fetch  and 
carry  for  anybody.  She  so  rarely  ex 
pressed  any  opinion  of  her  own,  that 
when  she  did  the  two  strong  and  good- 
natured  people  who  made  her  life  so  easy 
for  her  could  hardly  take  it  seriously. 
She  did,  to  be  sure,  decline  to  change  her 
son's  objectionable  name,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  his  name,  and  so  could  not  be 
changed;  "and,"  Mrs.  Blair  complained 
once,  "she  won't  let  me  send  Esther 
to  dancing-school.  I  asked  her  if  she 
thought  dancing  was  wrong,  and  she  said, 
'  Oh,  no ;  but  Mr.  Eaton  did.'  Is  n't  it 
funny  ?  " 

Robert   Blair   laughed,    and    said    he 
would  straighten  that  out.     But,  some 
how,  it  was  not  straightened  out.    Esther 
84 


THE   HOUSE  OF   RIMMON 

teased,  and  Mrs.  Blair  was  just  a  little 
impatient  and  sarcastic.  But  Esther  did 
not  go  to  dancing-school. 

"  I  'm  sorry  to  displease  you,  Eleanor," 
Mrs.  Eaton  said,  shrinking  as  she  spoke, 
like  a  frightened  animal  which  expects  a 
blow,  "  but  —  I  can't  allow  it.  Mr.  Eaton 
would  not  have  wished  it." 

Yet,  negative  as  she  seemed,  the  little 
quiet  woman  was  keenly  alive  to  the  ad 
vantages  of  this  full,  rich  life  for  the  chil 
dren,  and,  indeed,  for  herself.  Mere  rest 
was  such  a  luxury  to  her,  for  she  had 
lived  and  worked  as  only  a  country  min 
ister's  wife  must.  So,  to  feel  no  anxiety, 
to  have  delicate  food,  to  know  the  touch 
of  fine  linen,  —  in  fact,  to  be  comfortable, 
meant  more  to  her  than  even  her  brother, 
enjoying  his  generosity  towards  her,  could 
possibly  imagine. 

So  life  began  for  his  sister  and  her 
children  in  Robert  Blair's  beautiful  great 
house  in  the  new  part  of  Mercer,  —  the 
new  part  which  is  not  offended  by  the 
sight  of  those  great  black  chimneys  roar 
ing  with  sapphire  and  saffron  flames,  or 
belching  monstrous  coils  of  black  smoke, 
8.5 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

threaded  with  showers  of  sparks,  —  those 
chimneys  and  roofs  which  are  not  beau 
tiful  to  look  upon,  but  which  have  made 
the  "new"  part  of  Mercer  possible. 
When  Mrs.  Eaton  came  to  her  brother's 
house,  these  unlovely  foundations  of  his 
fortune  were  still  for  a  month.  There 
was  a  strike  on,  and  Mercer  was  cleaner 
and  quieter  than  it  had  been  for  many 
months,  —  in  fact,  than  it  had  been  since 
the  last  strike.  The  clang  and  clamor  of 
the  machine-shops,  the  scream  of  the 
steel  saws  biting  into  the  living,  glowing 
rails,  the  thunderous  crash  of  plates  being 
tested  in  the  hot  gloom  of  the  foundries, 
had  all  stopped. 

"And,  oh  dear  me,"  said  Mrs.  Blair, 
"  what  a  relief  it  is  !  Of  course  it 's  very 
annoying  to  have  them  strike,  and  all 
that,  but  when  one  drives  into  town  to 
get  to  the  other  side  of  the  river,  the 
noise  is  perfectly  intolerable.  And  when 
the  wind  is  in  that  direction,  we  can  really 
hear  the  roar  even  out  here." 

She  said  this  to  her  clergyman,  who 
looked  at  her  with  a  veiled  sparkle  of  hu 
mor  in  his  handsome  eyes. 
86 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

"  So  the  puddlers  shall  starve  to  make 
a  Mercer  holiday,"  he  said  good-na 
turedly. 

"  If  they  choose  to  strike,  they  must 
take  the  consequences,"  she  replied,  with 
some  spirit.  "  Besides,  they  are  the  most 
ungrateful  creatures  !  Well,  I  'm  sure  I 
don't  know  what  we  're  coming  to  !  " 

"  Something  may  be  coming  to  us," 
her  visitor  said,  with  a  whimsical  look, 
but  he  sighed,  and  got  up  to  take  his 
leave.  His  charming  parishioner  sighed 
too,  prettily,  and  said  with  much  feel 
ing,  - 

"Of  course,  Mr.  West,  if  there  are 
any  cases  that  need  help,  you  '11  let  me 
know." 

"  But,  Nellie,"  said  Mrs.  Eaton,  who 
had  been  sitting  silent,  as  usual,  and  quite 
overlooked  by  the  other  two,  "is  there 
any  use  in  helping  the  people  who  are 
in  trouble  because  they  are  out  of  work, 
and  yet  not  letting  them  go  to  work  ? " 

Mrs.  Blair  laughed,  in  spite  of  herself, 

the  protest  was  so   unexpected,  and  so 

absurd,  coming  from  this  meek  source. 

"  My  dear,"  she  said,  "  you  don't  under- 

87 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

stand ;  they  can  go  to  work  if  they  want 
to." 

"Well,"  Mrs.  Eaton  said  anxiously,  "I 
should  think,  either  they  are  wrong,  and 
so  you  should  n't  help  them,  or  they  are 
right,  and  they  ought  to  get  what  they 
want." 

Her  sister  stared  at  her,  and  then 
laughed  again,  greatly  amused  ;  but  Wil 
liam  West  put  on  his  glasses  and  gave 
her  a  keen  look. 

"  Mrs.  Eaton,  don't  you  want  to  help 
us  on  the  Organized  Relief  Associa 
tion?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Lydia  Eaton,  "if 
there 's  anything  I  can  do." 

"  I  don't  want  to  steal  your  services 
away  from  any  other  parson,"  he  said 
pleasantly.  "  I  suppose  you  belong  to 
Mr.  Hudson's  flock?  You  are  a  Pres 
byterian,  of  course  ? " 

"No,  sir,  I  am  not,"  she  said,  the  color 
rising  in  her  face. 

"  Oh,  then  you  do  belong  to  me  ? "  he 
said  smiling. 

"  I  'm  not  an   Episcopalian,"    she  an 
swered,  with  a  frightened  look. 
88 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

"Then  what  on  earth  are  you?"  Mrs. 
Blair  asked  her,  laughing. 

"I'm  not  —  anything,"  she  said,  her 
voice  trembling;  "but,  Eleanor,  please 
don't  speak  of  it.  The  children  must  not 
know  it.  Mr.  Eaton  would  want  them 
to  be  members  of  his  church.  So  we 
must  always  go  there." 

There  was  an  instant's  awkward  pause. 
Mrs.  Blair  looked  very  disapproving. 

"Why,  Lydia,"  she  said,  "do  you 
mean  you  don't  believe  things  ?  Why,  I 
never  had  a  doubt  in  my  life ! "  she  ex 
claimed,  turning  to  the  minister,  who 
was  silent. 

Mrs.  Eaton  caught  her  breath,  and 
looked  at  him  too,  her  mild  eyes  full  of 
pain.  "  Nobody  ever  asked  me  before.  I 
am  sorry,  but  I  can't  help  it.  The  Bible 
says  people  go  to  hell ;  but  God  is  good, 
so  I  don't  believe  the  Bible.  But  Mr. 
Eaton  would  wish  me  to  go  to  church." 

The  perfectly  simple  logic,  so  primitive 
as  to  stop  at  "  the  Bible  says,"  was  irre 
sistibly  funny  ;  yet,  to  William  West,  in 
finitely  touching.  But  he  put  the  discus 
sion  aside  quietly. 

89 


THE   HOUSE    OF   RIMMON 

"  So  you  will  come  on  our  committee  ? " 
he  said.  "We  shall  be  glad  to  have 
you." 

But  when  he  went  away  he  laughed  a 
little  to  himself.  "  The  iron  heel  of  Ed 
wards,  I  suppose.  But  how  direct !  Two 
and  two  make  four.  She  is  incapable  of 
understanding  that  they  sometimes  make 
five." 

But  Mrs.  Blair  did  not  dismiss  it  so 
lightly.  She  was  annoyed  at  the  protest 
about  the  strikers,  and  that  impelled  her 
to  straighten  out  Mrs.  Eaton's  religious 
beliefs.  There  was  some  irritation  in  her 
voice  as  she  began,  but  she  was  in  earnest, 
and  stopped  in  the  middle  of  "proofs" 
to  tell  Samuel  to  say  she  was  "not  at 
home." 

"  But,  Eleanor,  you  are,"  Mrs.  Eaton 
protested  in  a  frightened  way. 

"  My  dear,  that  is  a  form  of  speech." 

"  But  it  makes  Samuel  tell  a  lie,"  she 
said  nervously. 

"  Oh,  Lily,  don't  be  silly,"  Mrs.  Blair 
said  impatiently,  and  then  jumped  from 
hell  to  the  strikers,  —  though,  as  it  hap 
pened,  the  distance  between  them  was 
90 


THE    HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

not  so  great  after  all.  "  Really,  now, 
Lydia,  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  speak 
as  you  did  before  Mr.  West  about  the 
men.  In  the  first  place,  business  is  n't 
philanthropy,  and  Robert  can't  give  in  to 
them.  And  in  the  second  place,  they  are 
behaving  outrageously !  I  should  think 
you  would  have  more  loyalty  to  Robert 
than  to  seem  to  uphold  them." 

"  I  only  meant  "  —  Mrs.  Eaton  began 
breathlessly. 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  you  don't  know  what 
you  mean,"  Mrs.  Blair  interrupted,  laugh 
ing  and  good-natured  again.  "  But  just 
remember,  will  you,  how  kind  Robert  is  ? 
It  seems  to  me  he  is  always  doing  things 
for  this  ungrateful  place.  Look  at  the 
fountain  in  the  square ;  that 's  the  last 
thing." 

"  But  would  n't  the  men  rather  have 
had  running  water  in  the  tenements  ?  " 
Mrs.  Eaton  said ;  "  there  are  only  hy 
drants  down  in  the  back  yards." 

However,  as  that  first  year  in  Mercer 

slipped  by,  there  were  very  few  such  jars. 

The  strike  ended  early  in  the  fall,  and 

there  was  nothing  to  call  out  any  objec- 

91 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

tionable  opinion  from  Mrs.  Eaton  on  that 
line. 

"As  for  Lydia,"  Robert  Blair  said 
once,  "  you  say  '  go/  and  she  goeth.  She 
has  absolutely  no  will  of  her  own." 

This  was,  apparently,  quite  true.  At 
all  events,  she  had  a  genius  for  obedi 
ence,  and  a  terror  of  responsibility.  In 
the  organized  relief-work  which  Mrs. 
Blair's  clergyman  had  proposed,  obedience 
necessitated  responsibility  sometimes,  and 
no  one  knew  how  the  silent  little  creature 
suffered  when  she  had  to  decide  anything. 
But  she  did  decide,  usually  with  remark 
able  but  very  simple  common-sense. 

"  And  always  on  the  supposition  that 
two  and  two  make  four,"  Mr.  West  said 
to  himself.  He  found  her  literalness  a 
little  aggravating  just  at  first,  but  it  was 
very  diverting.  He  used  to  put  on  his 
glasses  and  watch  her  anxious  face  when 
she  talked  to  him  or  received  his  orders 
(for  such  his  requests  or  suggestions 
seemed  to  her) ;  and  he  would  ask  her 
questions  to  draw  out  her  astounding 
simplicity  and  directness  of  thought,  and 
find  her  as  refreshing  as  a  child.  She 
92 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

used  to  sit  up  before  him,  saying,  "Yes, 
sir,"  and  "No,  sir,"  and  looking,  with  her 
startled  eyes,  like  a  little  gray  rabbit  — 
for  at  the  end  of  a  year  she  took  off  her 
black  dress,  and  wore  instead  soft  grays 
that  were  very  pretty  and  becoming.  Her 
absolute  literalness  gave  him  much  en 
tertainment  ;  but  she  never  knew  it.  If 
she  had  guessed  it,  she  would  have  been 
humbly  glad  to  have  been  ridiculous,  if  it 
had  amused  him. 

And  so  the  first  year  and  a  half  went 
by. 

IV 

It  was  the  next  winter  that  she  asked 
her  first  question. 

"Mr.  West,"  she  said,  after  making 
notes  of  this  or  that  case  that  needed 
looking  after  (for  she  was  practically  vis 
itor  for  St.  James  now),  —  "  Mr.  West,  I 
would  like  to  ask  you  something." 

"  Do,  my  dear  Mrs.  Eaton,"  he  an 
swered  heartily. 

"  I  would  like  to  ask  you,"  she  said, 
her  eyes  fixed  on  his,  to  lose  no  shade 
of  meaning  in  his  reply,  "  do  you  think  it 
93 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

would  be  right  for  one  person  to  live  on 
money  that  another  person  had  stolen  ?  " 

"  If  they  knew  it  was  stolen,  of  course 
not !  "  he  said,  smiling.  "Has  a  pick 
pocket  offered  to  go  halves  with  you  ? " 

"  No,  sir,"  she  answered,  so  gravely 
that  her  listener's  eyes  twinkled.  She 
made  no  explanation,  but  went  away  with 
a  troubled  look.  The  next  time  she  saw 
him  she  had  another  question  :  — 

"  But  suppose  the  person  who  lived  on 
the  money  the  other  person  stole  needed 
it  very  much.  Suppose  they  had  n't  any 
thing  else  in  the  world.  Suppose  their 
children  had  n't  anything  else.  Would  it 
be  their  business  to  ask  where  it  came 
from,  Mr.  West?" 

"  If  it  was  their  business  to  spend  it, 
it  would  be,"  he  told  her.  "Oh,  my 
dear  lady,  the  question  of  complicity  is 
a  pretty  big  one  !  "  He  sighed,  thinking 
how  little  she  realized  that  she  was  guess 
ing  at  the  riddle  of  the  painful  earth. 

Again  she  went  away,  her  face  falling 

into  lines   of   care.     But  William  West 

never  thought  of  the  matter  again.     In- 

deed,  lie  had  no  time  to  think  of  his  quiet 

94 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

almoner ;  those  were  alarming  days  in 
Mercer.  The  echoes  of  that  storm  which 
shook  not  only  the  town,  but  the  very 
State  and  nation,  are  still  rolling  and 
muttering  in  the  dark  places  of  the  land. 
Another  strike  had  begun  in  October. 
As  for  the  deep  and  far-reaching  causes, 
the  economic  and  industrial  necessities, 
the  vast  plans  of  organizations  and  trusts, 
they  have  no  place  in  this  statement  of 
the  way  in  which  one  ignorant  woman 
regarded  their  effects  —  a  woman  living 
quietly  in  her  brother's  house,  doing  her 
work,  expending  her  little  charities,  try 
ing  to  relieve  the  dreadful  misery  of  those 
wintry  days,  with  about  as  much  success 
as  a  child  who  plays  beside  some  ter 
rific  torrent  and  tries  to  dam  it  with  his 
tiny  bank  of  twigs  and  pebbles.  Robert 
Blair's  sister  had  no  economic  or  eth 
ical  theories  ;  she  had  only  an  anguished 
heart  at  the  suffering  in  that  dreary  mill 
town,  a  dreadful  bewilderment  at  its  con 
trast  with  the  untouched  luxury  of  her 
brother's  house.  That  she  should  find  a 
child  in  one  of  the  tenements  dying  at 
its  mother's  barren  breast,  while  her  own 
95 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

children  fared  sumptuously  every  day; 
that  a  miserable  man  should  curse  her 
because  her  brother  was  robbing  him  of 
work,  and  warmth,  and  decency,  even, 
while  she  must  bless  that  same  brother 
for  what  he  was  giving  her,  was  a  dread 
ful  puzzle.  As  she  understood  the  situ 
ation,  this  misery  existed  because  her 
brother  would  no  longer  give  even  four 
teen  cents  an  hour  to  human  beings  who 
had  to  stand  half  naked  in  the  scorch 
of  intense  furnaces,  reeking  with  sweat, 
taking  a  breathless  moment  to  plunge 
waist  deep  into  tanks  of  cold  water ;  to 
men  who  worked  where  the  crash  of 
exploding  slag  or  the  accidental  tipping 
of  a  ladle  might  mean  death  ;  to  gaunt 
and  stunted  creatures,  hollow-eyed,  with 
bleared  and  sodden  faces,  whose  inces 
sant  toil  to  keep  alive  had  crushed  out 
the  look  of  manhood,  and  left  them  silent, 
hopeless,  brutish,  with  only  one  certainty 
in  their  stupefied  souls:  "men  dorit 
grow  old  in  tJie  mills."  .  .  .  That  these 
things  should  be,  while  she  was  clothed 
in  soft  raiment  bought  by  wealth  which 
these  desperate  beings  had  helped  to 
96 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

create  —  meant  to  this  ignorant  woman 
that  there  was  something  wrong  some 
where.  It  was  not  for  her  to  say  what  or 
where.  She  had  no  ambition  to  reform 
the  world.  She  did  not  protest  against 
the  "  unearned  increment,"  nor  did  she 
have  views  as  to  "  buying  labor  in  the 
cheapest  market."  She  did  not  know 
anything  about  such  phrases.  The  only 
thing  that  concerned  her  was  whether 
she,  living  on  her  brother's  money,  had 
any  part  or  lot  in  the  suffering  about 
her  ?  She  grew  nervous  and  haggard 
and  more  distrait  and  literal  than  ever. 
She  wished  she  dared  lay  her  troubles 
before  the  wise,  gentle,  strong  man  who, 
to  her,  was  all  that  was  good  and  great. 
But  it  did  not  seem  to  her  right  to  criti 
cise  her  brother  to  his  clergyman.  She 
never  realized  how  amusing  her  simplicity 
might  be,  laid  up  against  the  enormous 
complexity  of  the  industrial  question ;  to 
her  it  was  only :  "  If  Robert  is  rich,  and 
does  n't  give  his  workmen  enough  to  live 
on,  are  not  the  children  and  I  steal 
ing  from  the  men  in  living  on  Robert's 
money  ? " 

97 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

This  little  question,  applied  to  the  rela 
tions  of  capital  and  labor,  is  of  course  ab 
surd  ;  but  she  asked  it  all  the  same,  this 
soft,  negative,  biddable  creature.  She 
had  gone  to  take  some  food  to  a  hungry 
household,  and  she  went  away  burning 
with  shame  because  she  was  not  hungry ! 
It  had  been  a  cold,  bright  November 
day ;  she  went  past  one  of  the  silent  fur 
naces  along  the  black  cinder  path  to  the 
river-bank,  where  the  flat  cones  of  slag 
were  dumped;  some  of  them  were  still 
slightly  warm. 

It  was  quiet  enough  here  to  think  : 
After  all,  Robert's  money  did  so  much 
good ;  there  was  the  great  fountain  in 
the  square,  and  the  hospital,  and  the  free 
night  school.  And  think  of  what  he  was 
doing  for  Essie  and  Silas  !  Oh,  it  surely 
was  n't  her  business  to  ask  why  he  cut 
the  men's  wages  down  ! 

There  was  a  flare  of  sunset  flushing 
the  calm  blue  of  the  upper  heavens,  and 
in  the  river,  running  black  and  silent 
before  her,  a  red  glow  smouldered  and 
brightened.  Behind  her,  and  all  along 
the  opposite  bank,  the  furnaces  were  still 


THE   HOUSE  OF   RIMMON 

Oh,  the  misery  of  that  black  stillness! 
If  only  she  could  see  again  the  mon 
strous  sheets  of  flame,  orange,  and  azure, 
bursting  with  a  roar  of  sparks  from  under 
the  dampers  of  the  great  chimneys.  It 
would  mean  work  and  warmth  and  food 
to  so  many !  By  some  unsuggested  flash 
of  memory  the  parsonage  garden  came 
swiftly  to  her  mind.  It  must  be  lying 
chill  in  the  wintry  sunset ;  she  could  see 
the  little  house  behind  it,  with  its  bare, 
clean  poverty ;  she  wished  she  were  back 
in  it  again  with  the  two  children !  The 
beauty  and  the  luxury  of  her  brother's 
house  seemed  suffocating  and  intolera 
ble  ;  and  yet  would  it  feed  the  strikers  if 
she  should  starve  ?  —  the  vision  of  her 
own  destitution  without  her  brother's 
money  was  appalling.  She  sat  down  on 
a  piece  of  slag,  a  little  faint  at  the 
thought.  Just  then,  from  down  below 
her,  on  the  great  heap  of  refuse,  she 
heard  voices. 

"  Come  farther  up ;  they  're  hotter 
higher  up,"  a  woman  said  shrilly. 

Then  a  miserable  little  group  came 
clambering  over  the  great  cones  of  cool- 
99 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

ing  slag,  and  a  child  cried  out  joyously, 
"  This  here  one 's  hot,  mammy  !  " 

The  woman,  catching  sight  of  Robert 
Blair's  sister,  though  not  recognizing  her, 
said  harshly :  — 

"  You  bet  hangman  Blair  has  a  fire  in 
his  house  to-day.  Well,  thank  God,  he 
ain't  made  no  cut  in  slag,  yet ;  we  can 
get  a  bit  of  warmth  here.  I  wish  he  may 
freeze  in  his  bed  !  " 

Lydia  Eaton  answered,  stammering  and 
incoherent,  something  about  the  cold 
weather ;  and  then,  she  was  so  over 
strained  and  nervous,  she  burst  out  cry 
ing.  "  Oh,  won't  you  please  let  me  give 
you  this  ?  "  she  said,  and  put  some  money 
into  the  woman's  hand. 

She  went  away,  stumbling,  because  her 
eyes  were  blurred  with  tears,  and  saying 
to  herself,  — 

"What  shall  I  do?" 

She  almost  ran  into  Mr.  West  on  Baker 
Street,  and  stopped  abruptly,  putting  her 
hands  on  his  arm,  and,  in  her  agitation, 
shaking  it  violently,  her  whole  face  con 
vulsed  and  terrified. 

"  Tell  me  —  you  know ;  you  are  good  : 

100 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

whose  fault  is  it  ?     Robert's  — for  all  — • 
this?" 

He  understood  instantly,  and  was  very 
gentle  with  her. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Eaton,  that  is  a  very 
big  question.  It  isn't  any  one  man's 
fault.  It  seems  strange,  but  the  weather 
in  India  may  be  the  reason  we  are  all 
so  wretched  in  Mercer.  Your  brother 
may  be  forced .  to  make  this  cut  by  great 
laws,  which,  perhaps,  you  cannot  under 
stand." 

"  But  we  go  on  being  warm,"  she  said, 
"and  it  is  cold.  Oh,  those  little  chil 
dren  had  to  get  warm  on  the  slag  !  Oh, 
sir,  I  don't  believe  the  Saviour  would 
have  been  warm  while  the  children  were 
cold ! " 

She  looked  at  him  passionately,  ab 
ruptly  applying  the  precepts  of  the 
Founder  of  his  religion. 

"Ah,  well,  you  know,"  William  West 
said  kindly,  "this  whole  matter  is  so 
enormously  complicated"  And  then 
he  stammered  a  little,  for,  after  all,  how 
could  he  explain  to  this  poor  little  fright 
ened,  ignorant  soul  that  we  have  learned 

101 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

how  injurious  to  the  race  would  be  the 
literal  application  of  the  logic  of  the  Ser 
mon  on  the  Mount  ?  Nowadays  the  dis 
ciple  is  wiser  than  his  master,  and  the 
servant  more  prudent  than  his  Lord ;  we 
know  that  to  feed  the  five  thousand  with 
loaves  and  fishes,  without  receiving  some 
equivalent,  would  be  to  pauperize  them. 
But  of  course  Mrs.  Eaton  could  not  be 
made  to  understand  that.  The  clergy 
man  quieted  her,  somehow ;  perhaps  j  ust 
by  his  gentle  pitifulness  ;  or  else  her  rev 
erence  for  him  silenced  her.  She  did 
not  ask  him  any  more  questions  ;  and 
there  was  no  one  else  to  ask,  except  her 
brother,  and  just  now  it  would  have  been 
hard  to  find  the  chance  to  ask  Robert 
Blair  anything. 

The  strike  had  slowly  involved  all  the 
mills  owned  by  a  syndicate  of  which  he 
was  chairman.  He  had  to  go  to  South 
Bend,  where  the  great  smelting  furnaces 
are ;  he  was  mobbed  there,  though  with 
no  worse  results  than  the  unpleasantness 
of  eggs  and  cabbage  stalks ;  still,  the 
wickedness  of  those  dreadful  creatures 
was  something  too  awful,  Mrs.  Blair  said, 

102 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

crying  with  anger  and  fright  over  the 
newspaper  account.  At  still  another  mill 
town  a  ghastly  box  reached  him,  labeled  : 
"  Starved  by  the  Blair  syndicate."  Rob 
ert  Blair  paled  and  sickened  at  its  con 
tents,  but  he  swore  under  his  breath : 
"Let  them  starve  their  brats,  if  they 
want  to  ;  it  is  n't  my  business.  There  's 
work  for  them  if  they  want  it ;  but  the 
curs  would  rather  loaf.  This  country 
can  go  to  the  devil  before  I  '11  give  in  to 
them  !  " 

He  did  not  get  back  to  Mercer  until 
December.  "  I  would  n't  let  the  fools 
keep  me  from  you  on  Christmas,"  he  told 
his  wife  savagely,  and  caught  her  in  his 
arms  with  a  sort  of  rage.  "Were  you  very 
lonely  ?  You  Ve  been  nervous  —  I  can 
see  it  in  your  face.  You  are  paler!" 
He  ground  his  teeth  ;  that  those  brutes 
should  have  made  her  paler ! 

"Of  course  I  was  lonely,"  she  said, 
smiling,  though  her  eyes  were  bright 
with  tears,  "  and  I  Ve  been  frightened 
almost  to  death  about  you,  too.  Oh, 
that  mob ! " 

"  You  little  goose ;  did  n't  I  tell  you 
103 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

there  was  no  danger  ?  I  always  had  two 
detectives.  But  I  used  to  get  anxious 
about  you.  I  telegraphed  the  mayor  to 
detail  an  officer  to  be  always  about  the 
house.  Heaven  knows  what 's  going  to 
be  the  end  of  this  business,  Nell !  Well, 
sweetheart,  may  I  have  some  dinner,  or 
must  I  go  and  dress  first  ? " 

"  No.  You  're  dreadfully  dusty,  but  I 
can't  lose  sight  of  you  for  a  moment," 
she  said  gayly.  "  Robert,  I  should  have 
died  if  you  hadn't  been  at  home  for 
Christmas ! " 

His  sister  and  the  children  met  him  at 
the  dining-room  door  —  Silas,  capering 
about  with  delight ;  Esther,  prettier  than 
ever,  coming  to  hang  on  his  arm,  and  rub 
her  cheek  against  his  shoulder,  and  say 
how  glad  she  was  to  see  him. 

"  Robert,  it 's  perfectly  disgusting," 
Mrs.  Blair  complained,  "  but  a  delegation 
insists  upon  seeing  you  to-night ;  they 
are  coming  about  eight." 

"  Oh,  confound  it !  "  he  said  frowning ; 
"the  strike,  of  course  ?  A  lot  of  parsons 
meddling  with  what  they  know  nothing 
about." 

104 


THE  HOUSE  OF   RIMMON 

"There  are  parsons,  I  suppose,"  she 
said,  "  but  the  mayor  is  coming.  Do  get 
rid  of  them  as  soon  as  you  can,  so  that 
I  may  have  a  little  of  you." 

She  looked  so  pretty  as  she  sat  at  the 
head  of  her  table,  beseeching  him,  that 
he  declared  he  would  kick  the  delegation 
out  if  they  stayed  over  ten  minutes ;  then 
he  tossed  a  small  white  velvet  box  across 
the  roses  in  the  big  silver  bowl  in  the 
middle  of  the  table,  and  watched  her  flash 
of  joy  as  she  opened  it. 

"  It  seems  to  me  I  have  some  more 
boxes,  somewhere,"  he  said  good-hu- 
moredly.  "  There,  Essie !  if  your  aunt 
Eleanor  had  packed  me  off  to  get  into 
my  dress-suit,  I  would  n't  have  found  this 
one  in  my  pocket.  Lydia,  you  sober  old 
lady,  can  you  wear  that  ?  As  for  you, 
Silas,  you  don't  want  any  gewgaws,  do 
you  ?  We  fellows  think  more  of  a  bit  of 
paper  with  three  figures  on  it,  hey  ? " 

"There!  there's  the  bell.  It's  your 
horrid  delegation,"  Mrs.  Blair  cried. 
"Just  let  them  wait  till  you  finish  din 
ner.  And  do  get  rid  of  them  quickly. 
Mr.  Hudson,  Lydia's  minister,  will  be 
105 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

there ;  tell  him  to  wait  a  minute  when 
the  others  have  gone.  I  want  to  speak 
to  him." 

"I  thought  little  Hudson  had  more 
sense,"  Robert  Blair  grumbled,  rising  and 
going  into  the  library  to  meet  a  dozen 
of  his  fellow-citizens,  some  of  them  men 
with  grave  and  startled  faces,  who  from 
pity  for  the  three  thousand  fools  who 
were  turning  Mercer  upside  down,  and 
from  good-humored  interest  in  the  affairs 
of  their  powerful  townsman,  were  begin 
ning  to  feel  the  sting  of  personal  alarm 
about  their  own  concerns. 

These  men  were  saying  to  each  other 
what  the  newspapers  had  been  saying 
for  two  months,  that  Robert  Blair,  for 
vanity  or  obstinacy  or  greed,  was  bring 
ing  alarming  disaster  not  merely  upon  a 
few  thousand  desperate  and  hungry  and 
unreasonable  puddlers,  but  upon  the  re 
spectable  well-to-do  business  population 
of  his  city. 

"  And  he 's  got  to  stop  it ! "  the  mayor 
said  angrily. 

"It  would  be  a  good  job  if  somebody 
would  blow  him  up  with  dynamite,"  said 
106 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

the  Baptist  deacon,  who  was  the  wealth 
iest  merchant  in  town.  "He'll  swamp 
us  all,  if  we  don't  look  out." 

As  for  the  clergyman,  he  looked  very 
miserable,  for  he  had  the  expenses  of  his 
church  and  his  own  salary  in  mind,  and 
between  offending  Mr.  Blair  and  not  pro 
testing  against  the  continuance  of  the 
strike,  the  poor  little  man  was  between 
the  devil  and  the  deep  sea. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Robert  Blair,  calm 
and  hard  ("  as  nails,"  the  Baptist  deacon 
said),  "  I  appreciate  the  honor  of  your 
call,  and  I  hope  I  have  listened  with 
proper  courtesy  and  patience  to  what  you 
had  to  say  ;  but  allow  me  to  call  your  at 
tention  to  certain  facts  which  seem  to 
contradict  your  assertions  that  you  sus 
pect  that  I  am  not  acting  for  the  public 
good  in  this  matter  of  the  strike.  Mr. 
Mayor,  if  my  wealth  had  been  gained  by 
the  subversion  of  law  and  order,  as  you 
suggest,  I  am  sure  you  could  not  have 
accepted  any  of  it  for  your  campaign  — 
ah  —  expenses.  For  you,  Mr.  Davis,  a 
church  member,  a  deacon,  if  I  mistake 
not,  I  need  only  remind  you  of  your  will- 
icy 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

ingness  to  borrow,  I  will  not  say  how 
many  thousands,  as  the  basis  of  your 
most  successful  business  (though  I  would 
not  be  thought  to  underrate  your  own 
prudence  and  economy  in  paying  your 
women  clerks  a  little  less  than  they  can 
live  on).  And  as  for  my  worthy  friend 
here,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hudson,  if  my  money 
were,  as  he  has  so  delicately  implied, 
'blood-money/  I  cannot  think  he  would 
have  accepted  the  contribution  I  had  the 
privilege  of  making  towards  the  altera 
tions  of  his  church.  Gentlemen,  you 
have  felt  it  your  duty  to  remonstrate 
with  me  upon  my  way  of  making  money ; 
so  long  as  you  are  content  to  spend  that 
money,  I  cannot  believe  that  your  re 
monstrances  are  based  upon  anything 
else  than  the  inconvenience  to  yourselves 
of  certain  exigencies  which  I  deeply  re 
gret,  but  which  result  from  methods 
which  commend  themselves  to  me,  and 
which,  I  observe,  you  apply  in  your  own 
concerns  :  you  all  pay  as  little  as  you  can 
for  what  you  want ;  I  pay  as  little  as  I 
can  for  labor.  For  your  particular  re 
quest  that  I  submit  to  the  demands  of 
108 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

the  strikers,  I  can  only  say  that  when 
Mr.  Davis  will  give  away  in  charity  the 
fortune  built  upon  the  outcome  of  those 
methods ;  when  his  honor  the  Mayor 
will  refund  the  —  ah  —  expenses  of  his 
recent  successful  campaign  and  call  it 
conscience-money;  when  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Hudson  will  give  up  improving  his 
church  —  in  fact,  when  you  will  all  con 
sent  to  buy  your  shirts  or  your  potatoes 
in  the  dearest  market  —  I  will  consent 
to  alter  the  methods  whereby  I  have  had 
the  honor  of  serving  you.  We  will  all 
reduce  together.  When  we  can  do  that, 
I  will  recognize  a  moral  issue,  as  Mr. 
Hudson  so  admirably  expresses  it.  Un 
til  then  I  will  try  to  mind  my  own  busi 
ness.  If  it  were  not  perhaps  discourte 
ous,  I  would  recommend  a  like  course  of 
action  to  this  committee.  Gentlemen,  I 
bid  you  good-evening." 

He  was  pale  with  rage.  He  forgot 
his  wife's  message  to  the  minister ;  he 
bowed,  and  stood  with  folded  arms 
watching  the  withdrawal  of  the  humili 
ated  and  angry  delegation,  "with  their 
tails  between  their  legs,"  the  little  clergy- 
109 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

man  said  to  himself,  stung  by  the  impu 
dent  injustice  of  it  all. 

Mr.  Blair  went  into  the  drawing-room, 
breathing  hard  with  the  restraint  he  had 
put  upon  himself,  for  his  coldly  insolent 
words  had  been  no  outlet  to  his  anger. 
"  Don't  talk  about  it,"  he  said  violently. 
"  I  won't  hear  another  word  on  the  sub 
ject.  Nell,  I  thought  that  little  Hudson 
was  not  entirely  a  jackass,  though  he  is 
a  parson ;  he  had  the  impertinence  to 
say  that  'Brother  West'  agreed  with 
him.  I  don't  believe  it !  But  if  it 's 
true,  why,  then,  West  is  a  meddling  idiot, 
like  all  the  rest  of  these  damned  self- 
seeking  philanthropists." 

"Robert,  dear!  the  children,"  mur 
mured  Mrs.  Blair  nervously. 

His  face  was  dully  red,  and  his  blue, 
fierce  eyes  cut  like  knives ;  one  felt  an 
unspoken  epithet  applied  to  the  children, 
who  watched  him  furtively,  with  fright 
ened  glances,  and  moved  about  awk 
wardly,  speaking  to  each  other  in  under 
tones.  A  moment  before,  everything 
had  been  full  of  charm  and  graciousness ; 
their  pretty  aunt  sat,  indolent  and  grace- 
no 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

ful,  on  a  yellow  sofa,  leaning  back  against 
some  ivory-satin  cushions,  with  a  great 
yellow-shaded  lamp  shining  down  on  her 
delicate  dark  beauty;  the  flicker  of  the 
fire  behind  the  sparkling  brass  dogs  went 
leaping  softly  about  the  room,  glowing  on 
the  walls,  which  were  covered  above  the 
white  wainscoting  with  yellow  damask, 
on  which  the  candle-light  from  the  high 
sconces  fell  with  a  yellow  shine ;  every 
thing  was  golden  and  bright  and  rich, 
and  the  warm  still  air  was  delicate  with, 
the  scent  of  violets.  Then  into  it  burst 
this  violent  and  angry  presence. 

There  is  no  embarrassment  quite  like 
the  embarrassment  of  listening  to  a  per 
son  for  whom  one  has  a  regard  making  a 
fool  of  himself.  Nobody  spoke.  Robert 
Blair  tramped  up  and  down,  kicked  a  lit 
tle  gilded  stool  half  across  the  room, 
caught  his  foot  in  a  rug,  stumbled,  and 
then  swore.  Mrs.  Blair's  fox-terrier,  Pat, 
shrunk  under  a  table  and  looked  at  him, 
trembling. 

"Silas,"  said  Mrs.  Eaton,  "you  and 
Esther  must  go  upstairs." 

"The  trouble  is,"  said  her  brother  to 

XII 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

his  wife,  "these  men  don't  know  what 
they  are  talking  about ;  they  don't  know 
anything  about  the  market ;  they  don't 
know  anything  about  the  necessities  of 
trade  ;  all  they  know  is  their  dividends  ; 
if  they  were  cut,  there  'd  be  a  howl !  But 
they  presume  to  dictate  to  us  ;  to  tell  us 
the  money  is  blood-money  ;  all  the  same, 
they  are  ready  enough  to  spend  it  on 
their  own  carcasses  !  " 

Mrs.  Eaton  had  closed  the  door  on  her 
children,  and  came  and  stood  by  a  little 
silver-cluttered  table,  under  the  big  yel 
low  lamp.  "  I  think  Robert  is  quite  right," 
she  said. 

The  approval  of  this  mild  creature  was 
like  an  edge  laid  against  the  tense  thread 
of  Robert  Blair's  anger.  He  burst  into 
a  laugh. 

"Bless  your  heart,  Lydia,  I  didn't 
know  you  were  in  the  room.  Well,  my 
dear,  I  'm  glad  you  approve  of  me." 

"I  don't,  brother." 

"  Oh,  you  don't  ?  Where  are  the  chicks  ? 
Sent  them  out  of  the  room  because  I 
used  bad  words  ?  Well,  I  ought  n't  to 
swear  in  the  drawing-room,  that 's  a  fact. 

112 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

Place  aux  Dames  !  But  after  all,  I  only 
dropped  the  'place' " 

"  Oh  !  "  his  wife  said ;  and  then,  "  you 
are  very  naughty ;  "  and  pouted,  and 
pulled  him  down  on  his  knees  beside 
her. 

"  I  thought  it  was  very  natural  to  be 
angry  at  the  rug,"  Mrs.  Eaton  said 
breathlessly ;  "  I  've  often  felt  like  speak 
ing  that  way  myself  " — 

"Do,  Lydia,  do!"  Mr.  Blair  inter 
rupted,  with  a  laugh. 

" — but  Mr.  Eaton  would  never  have 
allowed  the  children  to  hear,  and  "  — 

"  Come,  now !  Have  n't  I  apologized  ? 
Don't  rub  it  in.  I  '11  give  you  something 
extra  to  put  in  the  plate  on  Sunday,  be 
cause  I  did  pitch  into  your  man  Hudson 
like  the  devil !  I  told  him  so  long  as  he 
spent  *  blood-money '  for  his  darned  im 
provements,  he  could  n't  reproach  me  for 
earning  it." 

"Oh,"  Lydia  Eaton  said,  her  hands 
squeezed  together,  —  "  oh,  no  !  He  is 
quite  different  from — me.  It  is  you  who 
are  spending  the  —  blood-money  on  the 
improvements.  If  he  were  spending  it 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

on-  himself,  like  —  like  me,  it  would  be 
different." 

Her  brother  looked  up  at  her  from  his 
footstool  at  his  wife's  feet,  first  amused, 
and  then  bored. 

"  My  dear  Lily,  I  'm  sure  I  don't  know 
what  you  are  talking  about.  I  'm  sorry  if 
I  stepped  on  your  toes  about  your  par 
son.  He  means  well.  Only  he  is  a  par 
son,  so  I  suppose  he  can't  help  being 
rather  ladylike  in  business  matters.  Do 
drop  the  subject ;  I  am  sick  of  the  whole 
thing.  How  is  your  conservatory,  Nell  ? 
Are  those  violets  the  result  of  your  agri 
cultural  efforts  ? " 

"  I  think,  Robert,"  his  sister  said  in 
her  low  voice,  that  shivered  and  broke, 
"  I  must  just  say  one  thing  more  :  I  must 
give  you  back  this  beautiful  thing  you 
gave  me  at  dinner.  And  I  must  go  away 
with  the  children." 

"  What  under  the  sun ! "  he  began, 
frowning ;  then  he  got  up  and  stood  on 
the  hearth-rug,  his  back  to  the  fire. 
"  Lydia,  I  hope  you  are  not  going  to  be 
a  fool  ?  What  are  you  talking  about  ?  Sit 
down,  —  sit  down  !  You  're  as  white  as 
114 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

a  ghost.  Lily,  I  'm  afraid  you  're  a  great 
goose.  What 's  the  matter  ?  "  He  could 
not  help  softening  as  he  looked  at  her. 
She  stood  there  by  the  little  tottering 
table,  loaded  with  its  dozens  of  foolish 
bits  of  silver,  so  tense  and  quivering  that 
even  his  impatient  eyes  could  not  fail  to 
see  her  agitation. 

"  Robert,  you  have  been  so  kind  to  us  ; 
you  are  so  good  to  us,  —  oh,  I  don't  know 
how  I  can  do  it !  "  she  broke  into  an  an 
guished  sob,  —  "  but  I  must.  Mr.  Eaton 
would  never  have  let  the  children  be  sup 
ported  on  money  that  was  not  —  that  was 
not  good." 

There  was  silence ;  the  clock  in  the 
hall  chimed  ten.  Then  Eleanor  Blair, 
sitting  up,  pale  and  angry,  said,  — 

"  Well,  upon  my  word  !  " 

Her  husband  looked  at  his  sister  with 
sudden  kindness  in  his  eyes.  "  Lily,  you 
don't  understand.  When  I  said  what  I 
did  to  Mr.  Hudson,  —  of  course,  that  has 
put  it  into  your  head,  —  I  did  n't  really 
mean  it.  In  the  first  place,  I  'm  an  hon 
est  man  (I  '11  just  mention  that  in  pass 
ing),  and  it  is  not  your  business  nor  his 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

to  judge  my  business  methods.  It  is  n't 
a  pretty  thing  to  look  a  gift-horse  in  the 
mouth,  Lil." 

"  It  is  n't  what  you  said  to  Mr.  Hud 
son,"  she  answered.  "  I  Ve  been  think 
ing  about  it  for  nearly  a  year.  Robert, 
you  pay  them  so  little,  and  I  —  I  have  all 
this." 

She  looked  about  the  beautiful  room 
with  a  sort  of  fright  :  it  seemed  to  her 
that  the  warm  and  stately  walls  hid  hu 
man  misery  lying  close  outside,  —  hun 
ger  and  hatred,  cold  and  sickness,  and 
the  terror  of  to-morrow.  The  impudent 
luxury  of  this  enormous  wealth  struck 
her  like  a  blow  on  the  mouth. 

"They,"  she  said,  with  a  sob,  "  are 
hungry  r 

Her  brother,  divided  between  irritation 
and  amusement,  was  touched  in  spite  of 
himself. 

"My  dear  Lily,"  he  said,  "you  can't 
understand  this  thing.  To  put  it  vul 
garly,  you  've  bitten  off  more  than  you 
can  chew.  Look  here,  the  men  can  go  to 
work  to-morrow  if  they  want  to  ;  but  they 
don't  want  to.  I  offer  them  work,  and 
116 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMrvION 

they  can  take  it  or  leave  it  Well,  they 
leave  it.  It 's  their  affair,  not  mine." 

But  she  shook  her  head  miserably. 
"  I  don't  understand  it.  If  you  were 
poor,  too,  it  would  be  different." 

"  Well,  really  !  "  said  Mrs.  Blair. 

But  Robert  Blair  was  wonderfully  pa 
tient. 

"  There 's  another  thing  you  must  re 
member,  Lily ;  these  people  are  far  better 
off  on  what  I  am  willing  to  pay  them 
than  they  were  in  Europe,  where  most  of 
them  came  from." 

"  But,  Robert,"  she  said  passionately, 
"  because  they  could  be  worse  off  does  n't 
seem  to  be  any  reason  why  they  should  n't 
be  better  off.  And  —  it  is  rit  kind'' 

"  Kind  ? "  Her  brother  looked  at  her 
blankly,  and  then,  with  a  shout  of  laugh 
ter,  "  Lydia,  you  are  as  good  as  a  play  ! 
No,  my  dear;  I  don't  run  my  mills  for 
kindness." 

"  But,"  she  said,  almost  in  a  whisper, 
"  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  unto  you  "  — 

Mrs.  Blair  made  a  gesture  of  disgust. 

"  —  oh,  brother,  I  did  n't  mean  to  find 
117 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

fault  with  you.  Only  with  myself.  I  — 
I  have  n't  any  right  to  spend  money  that 
I  — don't  know  about." 

"  Well,  anything  more  ? "  Robert  Blair 
said,  a  little  tired  of  her  foolishness. 
"  My  dear,  like  the  parson,  you  mean 
well ;  but  you  are  a  great  goose !  " 

As  for  his  wife,  she  did  not  even  an 
swer  Mrs.  Eaton's  tremulous  "  good 
night." 


The  husband  and  wife  looked  at  each 
other ;  then  Robert  Blair  flung  his  head 
back  with  a  laugh. 

"  She  is  perfectly  delicious  !  " 

"  She  is  perfectly  ungrateful,  and  I  be 
lieve  she  means  it." 

"  Oh,  nonsense !  Lil  has  n't  mind  enough 
to  mean  anything ;  and  I  '11  tell  you  an 
other  thing  :  in  spite  of  her  quiet  ways, 
she  really  has  a  good  deal  of  worldly  wis 
dom.  She  knows  what  it  is  to  those  two 
children  to  have  me  interested  in  them. 
Don't  worry  your  little  head  "  — 

"Oh,  I  don't  worry,"  she  answered. 
"  If  she  is  going  to  presume  to  criticise 
118 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

you,  I  don't  want  her  under  my  roof  ;  the 
sooner  she  leaves  the  better  !  " 

"  Spitfire !  "  he  told  her,  kissing  her 
pretty  hand,  and  forgetting  all  about  his 
sister's  absurdity,  and  the  strike,  and  the 
men  and  women  shivering  in  the  tene 
ments  down  in  the  miserable  mill  town. 

But  he  remembered  it  all  the  next 
morning  at  the  breakfast-table,  for  Lydia 
Eaton's  white  face  was  too  striking  to 
escape  comment.  Mrs.  Blair  was  not 
present,  preferring  to  be,  at  what  she 
called  the  "  brutal  hour  of  eight,"  in  her 
own  room,  with  a  tray  and  her  maid  and 
a  novel. 

"  What 's  the  matter  ?  "  Mr.  Blair  said 
kindly.  "  Are  you  ill,  Lily  ?  " 

"  It 's  what  I  told  you  last  night,  Rob 
ert,"  she  said  nervously. 

The  solemn  Samuel,  all  ears,  but  look 
ing  perfectly  deaf,  brought  a  dish  to  his 
master's  elbow.  Robert  Blair  closed  his 
lips  with  a  snap.  Then  he  said,  — 

"Please  make  no  reference  to  that 
folly  before  Eleanor." 

But  of  course  it  was  only  a  respite. 
The  folly  had  to  be  repeated  to  Eleanor 
119 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

- —  discussed,  argued,  denounced,  until 
the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  house  was 
charged  with  excitement. 

Through  it  all  Lydia  Eaton  came  and 
went,  and  did  her  packing. 

"Well,"  her  sister-in-law  said  con 
temptuously,  "  perhaps  you  '11  tell  me 
how  you  mean  to  feed  Esther  and  Silas  ? 
You  have  a  right  to  starve  yourself,  but 
I  have  some  feeling  for  the  children  ! " 

"I  am  going  to  work,"  the  other  an 
swered,  trembling. 

"Lydia,"  Mrs.  Blair  said  passionately, 
"next  to  your  ingratitude  to  your  bro 
ther,  I  must  say  your  selfishness  in  ruin 
ing  your  own  children  is  the  most  dread 
ful  thing  I  ever  heard  of !  " 

But  Mrs.  Eaton's  preparations  went 
on.  Not  that  there  was  so  much  to  do  ; 
but  she  had  to  find  rooms,  and  then  she 
had  to  find  work.  It  was  the  latter  exi 
gency  which  fanned  Robert  Blair's  con 
temptuous  annoyance,  which  refused  to 
take  the  matter  seriously,  into  sudden 
flames  of  rage,  for  his  sister  saw  fit  to 
apply  at  a  shop  for  the  position  of  sales 
woman.  Of  course  it  came  to  his  ears, 

120 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

and  that  night  the  storm  burst  on  Mrs. 
Eaton's  head.  As  for  Robert  Blair,  when 
the  interview  was  over,  during  which  he 
spared  Mrs.  Eaton  no  detail  of  his  furi 
ous  mortification,  he  said  savagely  to  his 
wife  :  "  I  wish  you  'd  go  and  see  if  West 
cannot  bring  her  to  her  senses.  Get  him 
to  influence  her  to  some  decency.  Tell 
him,  if  she's  set  in  this  outrageous  in 
gratitude,  I  wish  he  would  persuade  her 
to  let  me  send  her  East,  to  some  other 
place,  and  let  her  work  (and  starve!) 
where  she  won't  disgrace  me.  Think 
of  it,  Eleanor  —  that  man  Davis  coming 
whining  and  grinning,  and  saying  he 
'would  do  what  he  could  to  give  my 
sister  a  position  as  saleslady,  but  I  knew 
the  times  were  bad ' !  Damn  him  !  " 

"  Good  heavens,  Robert !  You  don't 
mean  to  say  she  's  been  to  Davis's  ?  My 
dear,  she  is  insane !  Yes,  I  '11  go  and  see 
Mr.  West  to-morrow." 

She  went.  It  was  a  raw,  bleak  morn 
ing;  the  thin,  chill  winter  rain  blurred 
the  windows  of  her  brougham,  and  the 
mud  splashed  up  against  the  glass ;  the 
wheels  sunk  into  deep  ruts  of  the  badly 

121 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

paved  streets,  and  the  uncomfortable  jolt 
and  sway  of  the  softly  padded  carriage 
added  to  her  indignation  at  her  sister-in- 
law. 

William  West  did  not  live  in  the  new 
part  of  Mercer,  with  its  somewhat  gor 
geous  houses;  nor  yet  in  the  old  part, 
which  was  charming  and  dignified,  and 
inclined  to  despise  everything  not  itself  ; 
but  in  the  middle  section,  near  the  rows 
of  rotten  and  tumbling  tenements,  and 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  bleak  and  hid 
eous  brick  blocks,  known  as  "Company 
boarding-houses."  He  had  come  here  to 
live  shortly  after  a  certain  crash  in  his 
own  life ;  a  personal  blow,  which  left  him 
harder,  and  more  silent,  and  more  ear 
nest.  He  had  been  jilted,  people  said, 
and  wondered  why,  for  a  while,  and  then 
forgot  it,  as  he,  absorbed  in  his  work, 
seemed  also  to  forget  it. 

Mrs.  Blair,  her  fox-terrier  under  one 
arm,  stepped  out  of  the  carriage,  frown 
ing  to  find  herself  in  this  squalid  street ; 
but  once  inside  the  big,  plain,  comfortable 
house  where  William  West  lived  all  by 
himself,  her  face  relaxed  and  took  a  cer- 

122 


t   THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

tain  arch  and  charming  discontent ;  there 
was  a  big  fire  blazing  in  the  minister's 
library,  and  the  dignity  and  refinement 
of  the  room,  the  smell  of  leather-covered 
books,  the  gleam  of  pictures  and  bronzes, 
and  a  charming  bit  of  tapestry  hanging 
on  the  chimney-piece  restored  her  sense 
of  mental  as  well  as  physical  comfort. 
When  he  entered,  and  dragged  a  big 
chair  in  front  of  the  fire  for  her,  and 
looked  at  her  with  that  grave  attention 
which  seems  like  homage,  and  was  part 
of  the  man,  being  called  forth  by  his 
washerwoman  as  well  as  by  Mrs.  Robert 
Blair,  she  felt  almost  happy  again,  and 
assured  that  everything  would  come  out 
right. 

"Mr.  West,"  she  began,  "you've  got 
to  help  us ;  we  're  in  such  absurd  difficul 
ties  !  Will  you  ?  " 

"  Command  me,"  he  said,  smiling. 

"  You  have  n't  heard,  then  ?  It 's 
Lydia  —  Mr.  Blair's  sister,  you  know. 
She  has  taken  it  into  her  head  that "  — 
the  color  came  into  Mrs.  Blair's  face  — 
"  that  she  won't  let  Robert  support  her, 
because  she  thinks  he  is  n't  treating  the 
123 


THE  HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

strikers  properly.  I  'm  sure  I  don't 
know  what  idea  she  has !  But  she  won't 
accept  his  money.  Did  you  ever  hear  of 
such  a  thing  ?  " 

William  West's  face  sobered  instantly. 
"  I  have  not  seen  Mrs.  Eaton  for  a  fort 
night,"  he  said  ;  "  I  had  no  idea  "  -  He 
got  up,  frowning,  the  lines  about  his  lips 
perplexed  and  anxious. 

"  I  'm  sure,"  the  pretty  woman  went 
on,  growing  angrier  as  she  spoke,  "I 
don't  care  what  she  does,  —  I  've  lost  all 
patience  with  her,  —  but  to  throw  the 
children's  future  away !  And  it 's  so 
embarrassing  for  Robert."  Then  she 
told  him  fully  the  whole  situation.  "  She 
keeps  saying,"  Mrs.  Blair  ended,  "that 
'Mr.  Eaton'  wouldn't  have  allowed  the 
children  to  be  supported  on  money  that 
'wasn't  good'  Did  you  ever  hear  such 
impertinence  ? " 

"Ah,  well,"  he  protested  good-na 
turedly,  "  I  'm  sure  Mrs.  Eaton  does  not 
mean  to  be  impertinent ;  and  I  'm  sure 
she  does  appreciate  her  brother's  kind 
ness.  Only,  she  is  trying  to  work  out  a 
great  problem  on  an  individual  basis, 
124 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

which  is  of  course  very  foolish.  But  the 
dear  little  lady  must  not  be  allowed  — 
And  yet "  —  He  paused,  frowning  and 
perplexed. 

"Ah,  but,  Mr.  West,  when  she  has  the 
assurance  to  quote  the  Bible  to  her  own 
brother  —  it  seems  to  me  that 's  rather 
impertinent  ?  Fancy  !  something  about 
'  doing  unto  others  '  —  and  '  being  par 
taker'  if  she  spent  the  money  that  had 
been  '  wrung  from  the  strikers.'  Upon 
my  word  !  *  Wrung  ! '  As  I  said  to  my 
husband,  '  Upon  my  word,  I  never  heard 
of  such  a  thing.'  " 

"Neither  did  I,"  William  West  said 
dryly.  "  We  are  all  of  us  in  the  habit  of 
taking  our  dividends,  and  not  looking  at 
the  way  they  are  earned.  Mrs.  Eaton  is 
certainly  unusual." 

"  Well,  do  you  think  you  can  influence 
her  ?  "  Mrs.  Blair  insisted.  "  I  don't 
mean  to  stay  with  us  ;  I  don't  think  that 
would  be  possible  or  desirable  now.  But 
to  let  Mr.  Blair  give  her  an  allowance,  so 
that  she  can  take  care  of  the  children. 
It  is  positively  wicked  to  think  how  she 
is  ruining  the  children  !  " 
125 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

"  Won't  she  take  any  money  from 
your  husband  ? " 

"  Not  a  cent,  if  you  please !  Not  a 
penny.  She  keeps  saying  that  if  she 
can't  feel  that  the  source  of  the  money 
is  all  right,  she  can't  spend  it."  Mrs. 
Blair  cuffed  her  dog  prettily  with  her 
muff,  and  kissed  his  little  sleek  head. 
"  Is  n't  she  a  goose,  Pat,  you  darling  ? " 

"  Her  principle  would  turn  the  world 
upside  down,"  the  clergyman  said. 

"  That 's  just  what  I  say !  "  cried  Mrs. 
Blair. 

"  If  we  all  said  we  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  *  blood  of  the  just  person,' 
what  would  become  of  the  railroads  and 
the  coal-mines  and  the  oil  trusts  ?  What 
would  become  of  our  dividends  from  in 
dustrial  stocks  if  we  insisted  on  knowing 
that  the  workmen  were  honestly  paid  ? 
How  could  we  eat  meat,  if  we  looked 
into  the  slaughter-house  ? " 

Mrs.  Blair  looked  puzzled. 

"And  she  is  going  to  work  for  her 

living  ?  "      He    was    profoundly   moved. 

"  Good  heavens,   out  of  the  mouths  of 

babes !     What  a  primitive  expression  of 

126 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

social  responsibility!  But  surely,  Mrs. 
Blair,  we  must  respect  her  honesty  ?  As 
for  her  judgment,  that 's  another  matter." 

Eleanor  Blair's  blank  astonishment  left 
her  speechless  for  a  moment ;  then  she 
flung  up  her  head  haughtily. 

"  Mr.  West,  do  you  mean  to  say  "  — 
she  began. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Blair,"  he  said  quietly, 
"  I  mean  to  say  that  little  Mrs.  Eaton,  in 
her  simple  way,  puts  her  finger  right  on 
the  centre  of  this  whole  miserable  ques 
tion,  in  which,  directly  or  indirectly,  we 
are  all  involved :  she  has  recognized  our 
complicity.  Of  course  she  is  going  to 
work  the  wrong  way  —  at  least,  I  suppose 
she  is.  God  knows  !  But  what  courage, 
—  what  directness  !  " 

"Do  I  understand,"  Eleanor  Blair  said, 
rising,  "  that  you  approve  of  my  sister-in- 
law's  extraordinary  conduct  ? " 

"  I  approve  of  her"  he  said,  smiling. 
"  If  you  ask  me  whether  I  think  she  is 
doing  right,  I  should  say  'Yes,'  because 
she  is  acting  upon  her  conscience.  Is 
she  doing  wisely  ?  No  ;  because  civiliza 
tion  is  compromise.  We  have  either  got 
127 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

to  bow  in  the  House  of  Rimmon,  or  go 
and  live  in  the  woods  like  Thoreau  and 
eat  dried  peas.  I  '11  tell  her  so,  if  you 
want  me  to.  But  as  for  attempting  to 
influence  her,  I  cannot  do  that.  The 
place  whereon  we  stand  is  holy  ground." 

Mrs.  Blair  picked  up  her  dog  and  set 
her  teeth  ;  then  she  looked  slightly  be 
yond  the  clergyman,  with  half -shut  eyes, 
and  said,  — 

"  Will  you  be  good  enough  to  have  my 
carriage  called  ? " 


VI 

"  I  never  would  have  been  brave 
enough,"  Mrs.  Eaton  said  meekly  to 
Mr.  West,  when  the  dreadful  step  was 
actually  taken,  "  I  never  could  have  done 
it,  but  I  knew  Mr.  Eaton  would  have 
wished  it ;  and,  besides,  I  felt  I  was  tak 
ing  the  food  of  those  poor  people." 

"Well,  no,"  he  began,  "that  is  really 
not  reasonable" —  But  he  stopped; 
this  timid  creature  could  not  reason  — • 
she  could  only  feel.  "  Fools,"  he  said  to 
himself,  as  he  left  her,  "rush  in  where 
128 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

the   political   economist    fears   to   tread 
She  is  a  fool,  poor  little  soul,  but  " 

The  winter  had  passed  heavily  away. 
Mrs.  Eaton  had  succeeded  in  getting  a 
place  in  Mr.  Davis's  shop  —  "  where,"  the 
proprietor  used  to  say,  "having  Robert 
Blair's  sister  for  a  saleslady  is  money  in 
my  pocket !  She 's  better  than  a  '  fire- 
and-water  bargain  sale.'  "  So  she  stood 
behind  a  counter  and  sold  ribbon,  and 
was  stared  at  and  whispered  about.  But 
she  had  very  keen  anxieties  about  food 
and  clothes,  and  the  children's  discon 
tent  lay  like  a  weight  upon  the  mother's 
heart  —  which  ached,  too,  with  the  pain 
of  the  second  wrench  from  the  affection 
and  kindness  of  her  family.  Fortunately 
her  peculiar  logic  did  not  lead  her  to 
reject  the  Baptist  deacon's  money,  which 
was  certainly  much  more  doubtful  than 
her  brother's.  By  some  mental  process 
of  her  own,  the  fact  that  she  worked  for 
it  seemed  to  make  its  acceptance  moral. 
She  had  no  leisure  now  to  work  for  Mr. 
West ;  but  the  remembrance  of  his  pa 
tience  and  gentleness  always  made  a  little 
pause  of  peace  in  her  heavy  thoughts. 
129 


THE   HOUSE   OF   RIMMON 

It  was  a  hard,  bleak  life  for  this  silent 
little  creature ;  and  the  rector  of  St. 
James,  himself  a  silent  soul,  watched  her 
live  it,  and  pondered  many  things. 

The  strike  had  broken  in  February. 
The  men  went  back  to  their  work  —  de 
feat,  like  some  bitter  wind,  blowing  the 
flames  of  resentment  into  fiercer  heat, 
which  "next  time"  would  mean  destroy 
ing  victory. 

"  Will  it  be  like  Samson  pulling  down 
the  temple  upon  himself  ? "  William 
West  wondered,  depressed  and  hopeless. 

It  was  night  —  a  summer  night ;  sweet 
and  still  over  in  the  old-fashioned  part  of 
Mercer,  where  the  fragrance  of  roses 
overflowed  the  high  brick  walls  of  the 
gardens.  Here  in  the  mill  district  it  was 
not  sweet,  and  all  night  long  the  mills 
roared  and  crashed,  and  the  flames  burst 
ing  out  of  vast  chimneys  flared  and  faded, 
and  flared  again. 

William  West  was  alone  in  his  library. 
His  sermon  for  the  next  morning  had 
been  finished  early  in  the  week ;  he  had 
looked  it  over  the  last  thing,  and  now  the 
manuscript  was  slipped  into  its  black  vel- 
130 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

vet  cover.  He  sat,  his  head  on  his  hand, 
tapping  with  strong,  restless  fingers  the 
arm  of  hfs  chair.  The  old  question,  al 
ways  more  or  less  present  in  the  mind  of 
this  man,  was  clamoring  for  an  answer  : 
How  far  are  we  responsible  ?  Through 
how  many  hands  must  dishonest  money, 
cruel  money,  mean  money,  pass  to  be 
cleansed  ?  Is  it  clean  when  it  comes  to 
me — this  dividend  or  that  ?  Shall  a  man, 
or  a  railroad,  or  a  trust  deal  iniquitously 
with  one  of  these  little  ones,  and  I  profit 
by  it  ?  Shall  I  trace  my  dollar  to  its 
source,  and  find  it  wet  with  tears  and 
blood,  and  reject  it  ?  Or  shall  I  decline  to 
trace  it,  and  buy  my  bread  in  innocence  ? 
Even  the  chief  priests  refused  the  thirty 
pieces  of  silver !  Am  I  an  accomplice  ? 
For  that  matter,  is  the  Christian  Church 
an  accomplice  ?  What  does  it  say  to  the 
philanthropy  of  thieves  ?  Priests  used  to 
take  toll  from  the  plunder  of  robbers, 
and  say  mass  for  their  souls  in  return. 
Nowadays  —  "I  cover  my  eyes,  but  I 
hold  out  my  hand,"  he  said  to  himself. 

Well  —  well !     The  Reverend  William 
West,  in  his  way,  was  doubtless  as  great 


THE   HOUSE  OF   RIMMON 

a  fool  in  asking  unprofitable  questions 
as  was  Lydia  Eaton.  That  the  existing 
order  would  be  turned  upside  down  by 
the  introduction  of  the  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
Such  an  introduction  would  be  the  ap 
plication  to  the  complex  egotism  of  the 
nineteenth  century  of  the  doctrines  of  a 
Galilean  peasant,  who  was  a  communist 
and  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  It  would 
be  the  setting  forth  in  individual  lives  of 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  most  revo 
lutionary  element  that  could  possibly  be 
introduced  into  society.  We  are  none  of 
us  ready  for  that. 

At  least  William  West  was  not  ready ; 
he  had  no  intention  of  making  himself 
ridiculous,  no  matter  if  he  did  ask  him 
self  unanswerable  questions  ;  he  was  not 
ready  to  throw  away  present  opportuni 
ties  and  destroy  his  influence.  Yet,  as 
for  Mrs.  Eaton  — 

"  Talk  about  martyrs  !  "  he  said  to 
himself,  as  he  sat  there  at  midnight 
thinking  of  her,  of  her  hard  life,  of  her 
splendid  foolishness. 

"Well,  there  is  one  thing  I  could  do 
132 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

for  her.  Why  not  ?  Good  God,  how  self 
ish  I  am  !  I  suppose  she  would  think  my 
money  was  clean  ?  Yes,  I  could  at  least 
do  that" 

This  was  no  new  thought.  It  had 
been  in  his  mind  more  or  less  for  months. 
He  only  faced  it  that  night  more  strenu 
ously. 

So  it  came  about  that  by  and  by  he 
rose,  his  face  set,  his  mouth  hard.  He 
took  a  key  from  his  watch  chain,  and 
opened  a  little  closet  in  the  side  of  the 
chimney,  and  took  out  a  box.  He  laid  it 
on  the  table,  and  again  sat  down  in  his 
revolving  chair,  and  stared  blankly  ahead 
of  him.  Then  he  opened  it.  There  were 
some  letters  in  it,  and  a  picture,  and  a 
crumbling  bunch  of  flowers  that  looked 
as  though  they  had  once  been  pansies  ; 
he  held  them  in  his  hand,  a  bitter  sort  of 
amusement  in  his  eyes.  The  letters  he 
put  aside,  as  though  their  touch  stung 
him.  At  the  photograph  he  looked  long 
and  intently.  Then  he  bent  the  card  over 
in  his  hand,  and  it  broke  across  the  mid 
dle.  Hastily  he  gathered  these  things  to 
gether  and  went  over  to  his  fireplace.  A 
133 


THE   HOUSE   OF  RIMMON 

fire  had  been  laid  during  the  cold  spring 
rains,  and  the  logs  were  dry  and  dusty. 
At  the  touch  of  a  match,  they  sputtered 
and  broke  into  a  little  roaring  flame. 
William  West  put  his  handful  of  letters 
and  the  flowers  and  the  picture  gently 
down  in  the  midst  of  it,  and  then  stood 
and  watched  them  burn.  When  there  was 
only  a  white  film  left,  on  which  the  sparks 
ran  back,  widening  and  dying,  he  went 
over  to  his  desk,  and  with  a  certain  strong 
and  satisfied  cheerfulness  he  began  to 
write  :  — 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  EATON,  —  You  and 
I  have  spoken  more  than  once  of  your 
action  in  leaving  your  brother's  house, 
and  you  know,  I  am  sure,  how  profoundly 
I  honor  and  respect  your  courage  in  act 
ing  upon  your  convictions.  It  is  this  re 
spect  which  I  am  venturing  to  offer  you 
in  asking  you  to  honor  me  by  becoming 
my  wife.  My  sincere  regard  and  appre 
ciation  have  been  yours  ever  since  I  first 
knew  you,  and  if  you  will  consent  to 
make  a  home  for  yourself  and  the  chil 
dren  in  my  house,  it  will  be  a  home  for 
134 


THE   HOUSE  OF  RIMMON 

me,  and  you  know  what  that  will  be  for 
a  lonely  man.  If  you  will  consent,  I  shall 
be  always, 

Faithfully  yours, 

WILLIAM  WEST. 

As  he  folded  the  sheet  of  paper  and 
thrust  it  into  the  envelope  there  was  a 
whimsical  look  in  his  eyes. 

"  A  /0^-letter  !  "  he  said  to  himself ; 
but  his  face  was  very  gentle  and  tender. 

However,  the  answer  to  the  letter  was 
all  that  the  most  ardent  lover  could  de 
sire. 

135 


COUNTING  THE  COST 


'NIE  GRAHAM,  the  young 
woman  with  whom  this  story 
concerns  itself,  lived  in  a  West 
ern  manufacturing  town.  Her  home  was, 
both  inside  and  outside,  like  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  other  American  homes, 
a  cheap  frame  house,  in  a  cheap,  respect 
able  suburb ;  a  house  without  any  other 
beauty  or  refinement  than  cleanliness 
and  a  certain  amount  of  rather  coarse 
comfort.  Her  father  was  a  workingman, 
as  his  father  had  been  before  him.  He 
was  a  gasfitter,  and  went  to  his  work 
every  morning  with  a  greasy  leather  bun 
dle  under  his  arm,  and  a  cheerful  heart 
in  his  breast.  First,  because  he  had 
plenty  of  work  and,  having  no  imagina 
tion,  never  worried  about  the  future. 
But  mostly  because  of  a  comfortable  fact 
136 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

to  which,  when  not  occupied  with  the 
practical  details  of  his  trade,  he  devoted 
his  thoughts ;  the  fact  being  that  there 
was  a  certain  tidy  bit  of  money  in  the 
bank  for  his  Annie,  —  money  which  he 
had  hoarded  up,  little  by  little,  saved  out 
of  car-fares,  and  tobacco,  and  clothes  ; 
money  which  meant  privation  and  cour 
age,  and  slow,  persistent,  heavy  toil.  It 
amounted  to  a  little  over  fifteen  hun 
dred  dollars,  and  he  hoped  it  would 
be  twenty-five  hundred  before  he  died. 
What  Annie  would  do  with  it  when  he 
was  gone  was  the  only  direction  in  which 
Johnny  Graham's  fancy  worked.  Would 
she  rent  a  better  house,  maybe,  than  this 
little  one  they  had  lived  in  since  she  was 
twelve;  or  would  she  get  herself  fine 
clothes  or  a  piano  or  books  ?  He  thought 
that  she  would  probably  get  books.  Annie 
was  so  fond  of  reading  !  He  was  very 
proud  of  this  fondness  for  reading,  and 
used  to  tell  his  fellow-workmen  about  it, 
and  say  he  had  seen  her  turn  over  so 
many  pages,  in  fifteen  minutes  by  his 
watch.  He  timed  her,  he  said,  and  my ! 
but  she  was  the  fast  reader  !  He  had  no 
137 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

idea  of  placing  any  restrictions  upon  the 
way  in  which  she  should  spend  her  in 
heritance  when  she  got  it ;  he  had  no 
feeling  about  the  money  as  anything  but 
a  means  of  future  pleasure  to  Annie. 

"  When  I  'm  dead  and  gone,  the  after 
noon,  maybe,  of  the  funeral,  they  '11  tell 
her.  '  Annie  Graham,'  the  lawyer  '11  say, 
'your  father's  left  you  a  tidy  bit  of 
money.  It 's  twenty-five  hundred  dollars,' 
he  '11  say  ;  well,  maybe  it  '11  be  twenty- 
six  hundred,  —  well,  say  three  thousand. 
'  Miss  Graham,'  he  '11  say,  '  here 's  three 
thousand  dollars.'  Well,  Annie  '11  jump. 
An*  it'll  comfort  her,"  Annie's  father 
would  think  many  times  a  day,  smiling, 
and  screwing  in  his  gas-fixtures  with  his 
blackened  fingers,  or  scratching  a  match 
on  his  trousers,  and  hunting  for  leaks. 

He  had  been  father  and  mother  to  his 
little  girl  ever  since  his  wife  died,  when 
Annie  was  five.  He  had  baked  and 
scrubbed  and  cleaned  for  them  both 
when  she  was  a  child,  and  in  his  clumsy 
way  he  had  sewed  on  buttons  and  darned 
rents  and  washed  her  little  face  and 
hands  as  tenderly  as  a  woman  could  have 
138 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

done.  And  when  she  grew  into  a  big 
girl  and  went  to  the  grammar  school,  he 
still  knew  all  about  her  hats  and  clothes ; 
and  he  still  tried  to  save  her  pretty 
hands,  and  sifted  the  ashes,  and  waited 
on  her,  and  was  proud  of  her  just  as  he 
always  had  been.  There  was  more  than 
one  hard-working  woman  neighbor  who 
would  have  been  willing  to  "  make  a  good 
stepmother  "  to  Annie,  and  who  felt,  in 
all  honesty,  that  the  gasfitter  was  spoil 
ing  his  girl,  and  that  she  just  only  hoped 
nothing  bad  would  come  of  it. 

"  Them  girls  that 's  taken  such  care  of, 
—  well,  the  dear  only  knows  what  hap 
pens  to  them  !  "  the  neighbors  said,  with 
mysterious  pursings  of  the  lips.  But  so 
far  nothing  out  of  the  way  had  happened 
to  Annie.  Nothing  "  bad  "  had  come  of 
the  simple,  faithful  loving  that  the  child 
had  had. 

Annie  was  eighteen.  She  was  a  fresh- 
looking  girl,  with  an  intelligent  face, 
though  a  little  serious  for  her  years.  Her 
placid  gray  eyes  had  a  rather  absent  look 
sometimes,  and  there  was  a  line  on  her 
white  forehead  that  told  of  thought. 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

Johnny  Graham  knew  what  that  line 
meant.  He  knew  with  what  intensity 
Annie  had  applied  herself  to  her  studies 
when  she  was  in  school,  and  how,  after 
she  had  graduated,  and  had  gotten  a  place 
as  a  "  saleslady,"  as  Johnny  expressed  it, 
she  still  worked  and  toiled  over  her  books 
whenever  she  could  find  time. 

"But  she's  mostly  figurin',"  he  told 
his  friends  proudly. 

That  Annie,  at  eighteen,  had  taught 
herself  geometry,  and  had  yearnings  for 
the  higher  calculus,  was  a  matter  of 
burning  pride  to  the  gasfitter,  though  he 
had  no  idea  what  it  was  all  about. 

"  I  suppose  now,  Annie,  you  know  all 
there  is  in  the  arithmetics  on  them  sub 
jects  ?  "  he  said  to  her  one  night  as  he 
sat  in  his  shirt-sleeves  smoking  his  pipe 
by  the  kitchen  stove,  and  looking  at  his 
daughter,  who,  with  her  pencil  pressed 
against  her  lips,  was  frowning  over  a 
sheet  of  calculations.  Annie  gave  a  lit 
tle  start  and  looked  up  smiling. 

"  Why,  father,  dear,  I  don't  know  any 
thing —  comparatively." 

"  But,  Annie,  now  what 's  the  good  of 
140 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

them  lines  ?  Do  you  cut  patterns  on  'em  ? 
I  seen  a  advertisement  saying  they  'd 
show  you  how  to  cut  out  dresses  on  a 
chart.  And  there  was  a  lot  of  them 
lines  drawed  on  it." 

Annie  came  over  and  sat  on  his  knee ; 
she  laughed,  but  she  sighed,  too. 

"  No ;  it 's  just  working  them  out  that 
I  like,"  she  said.  "  I  guess  I  like  study 
ing;  that's  it." 

"  Well,  you  're  a  real  student,  I  guess," 
he  told  her,  and  passed  his  rough,  grimy 
hand  over  her  soft  hair.  "  Did  I  pull 
your  hair  ? "  he  said,  for  it  seemed  as 
though  she  winced ;  but  she  only  an 
swered  by  taking  his  hand  and  kissing 
it,  which  made  her  father  protest,  and 
then  cuddle  her  up  in  his  arms  and  say, 
"  Well,  now,  Annie,  I  think  you  're  a  real 
scholar." 

They  sat  in  the  kitchen,  but  not  be 
cause  they  had  not  a  parlor,  like  every 
body  else.  There  was  a  best  room  behind 
the  kitchen,  and  upstairs  two  bedrooms, 
and  above  them  an  attic,  rented  to  Dave 
Duggan,  a  steady  young  workman  who 
had  lodged  with  them  for  nearly  a  year, 
141 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

Of  course,  obviously  —  propinquity  being 
the  root  of  love  —  he  had  a  tenderness 
for  Annie;  and  he  was  referred  to  by 
the  women  who  were  not  Annie's  step 
mothers  as  her  "feller."  The  parlor,  in 
which  the  gasfitter  rarely  sat,  was  as 
frankly  ugly  as  the  outside  of  the  small, 
narrow  frame  house.  It  had  been  fur 
nished  according  to  Mrs.  Graham's  taste, 
and  it  had  been  religiously  unchanged 
since  her  death.  The  tapestry  carpet,  with 
its  monstrous  roses  and  broad  green 
leaves,  had  worn  and  faded  into  inoffen- 
siveness,  and  the  red  rep  furniture  had 
suffered  the  same  kindly  change ;  but  the 
knitted  tidies  were  new,  and  the  plush 
picture  frames  ;  and  Annie  had  added  the 
knots  of  china  silk  on  the  chair-backs; 
and  on  the  wall  there  was  a  snow-shovel, 
painted  and  gilded  and  tied  with  pink 
satin  ribbons,  and  also  some  decorated 
brass  placques  ;  on  the  mantelpiece  were 
two  little  wooden  shoes, —  Dave  Duggan's 
gift,  —  gilded  and  adorned  with  blue  satin 
bows,  and  used  as  match-boxes. 

To  Johnny  Graham  this  terrible  parlor 
stood  for  art  and  luxury.     As  for  Annie, 
142 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

she  did  not  know  enough  to  find  the 
snow-shovel  painful,  nor  even  the  rolling- 
pin,  another  gift  from  Dave,  which,  cov 
ered  with  plush,  hung  from  one  corner 
of  the  mantelpiece.  She  merely  thought 
of  these  things  as  "  mother's "  and  as 
"  presents,"  and  valued  them  accordingly. 
But  she  would  never  have  dreamed  of  oc 
cupying  this  fine  room  unless  there  was 
company ;  and,  indeed,  the  kitchen  was 
far  more  homelike. 

She  sat  now  nestling  down  against  her 
father's  shoulder,  listening  to  his  story 
of  the  day's  work  :  the  fine  house  on  the 
hill  where  he  had  gone  to  mend  a  fix 
ture  ;  the  nice  young  lady  he  had  seen ; 
and  the  toilet-table  all  covered  with  silver 
things. 

"  Why,  Annie,  now  I  tell  you,  there  was 
brushes  and  combs  made  out  of  silver ; 
and  there  was  five  little  sorts  of  silver 
boxes,  different  sizes  and  shapes,  hearts 
and  rounds  mostly.  Did  n't  seem  to  have 
nothing  in  'em.  I  had  to  move  'em  to 
get  at  the  bracket.  What  do  you  sup 
pose  folks  has  such  things  for  ?  Now  a 
brush  made  out  o'  silver  is  no  sense; 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

it's  heavy.  Annie,  now,  would  you  like 
things  like  that  ? " 

"  Indeed,  I  would  n't/'  she  said.  "  Think 
of  the  trouble  they  'd  be  to  keep  clean." 

"Well,  the  help  does  that  in  them 
houses,  I  suppose,"  he  ruminated.  "  An 
nie,  now,  suppose  you  had  a  lot  of  money, 
would  you  buy  them  things  ? " 

"  Indeed,  I  would  n't !  "  Annie  said 
again,  laughing.  "  No,  I  know  what  I  'd 
do.  I  heard  a  girl  talking  about  it. 
There 's  a  college  for  girls  somewhere 
in  the  East,  just  like  there  is  for  young 
men.  I  would  go  to  that  college  and 
study.  My !  would  n't  I  study !  " 

That  was  the  beginning  of  what  some 
people  called  the  tragedy  of  Annie  Gra 
ham's  life,  and  some  the  success  —  it  all 
depends  on  how  you  look  at  it. 

Her  chance  remark  about  a  girl's  col 
lege  lingered  in  her  father's  thoughts ; 
Johnny  Graham  had  not  known  that 
there  were  such  things  as  women's  col 
leges.  There  were  primary  schools  and 
high  schools  and  "pay"  schools,  where 
he  supposed  the  swells  sent  their  chil- 
144 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

dren,  but  his  knowledge  never  went  far 
ther  than  this. 

"A  college  for  girls!"  Well,  why 
not  ?  He  believed  girls  was  smarter 
than  boys  any  day  in  the  year ;  anyway 
his  Annie  was.  He  thought  about  it  con 
stantly,  when,  to  save  something  for  that 
inheritance  in  the  bank,  he  walked  to 
and  from  his  work ;  and  he  thought  of  it 
while  he  worked.  He  spoke  of  it,  when 
he  had  the  chance,  in  a  tentative  way  to 
two  or  three  persons  for  whom  he  was 
doing  jobs  of  gasfitting.  Did  they  ever 
hear  anything  of  them  girls'  colleges  ? 
What  was  they  like  ?  Did  they  cost 
money  ?  Once,  in  the  big  morning-room 
of  an  old-fashioned  house,  he  spoke  to 
an  old  lady  who  sat  by  the  fire  while  he 
screwed  a  lava  tip  on  the  burner  over 
the  mantelpiece.  She  was  an  old  woman 
and  rich,  and  so  she  ought  to  know  about 
such  things,  Johnny  Graham  reasoned ; 
so,  with  the  respectful  guilelessness  of 
the  American  workman,  he  cleared  his 
throat  and  said,  he  wondered,  now,  if  she 
was  knowing  anything  about  girls'  col 
leges  ? 

US 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

The  old  woman  started,  and  seemed  to 
see  him  for  the  first  time,  and  put  on  her 
glasses  to  inspect  him. 

"  What  did  you  say,  my  good  man  ? " 
she  inquired. 

Johnny,  unoffended  by  this  offensive 
term,  which  means,  "  you  are  not  so  good 
as  I  am,"  repeated  his  question  mum- 
blingly,  with  the  old  lava  tip  between  his 
lips. 

"  I  have  a  girl  I  'm  thinking  of  send 
ing  to  one  of  them  institutions,"  he  ex 
plained. 

The  old  lady  frowned  and  took  off  her 
glasses  and  tapped  them  on  the  arm  of 
her  chair. 

"You  will  make  a  great  mistake,  my 
good  man.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  ed 
ucate  your  daughter  above  her  posi 
tion." 

Johnny  took  the  lava  tip  out  of  his 
mouth  and  stared  at  her. 

"Well,  now,  ma'am,"  he  said  in  his 
slow  way,  "  I  don't  see  how  you  make 
that  out.  An  American  girl  is  an  Amer 
ican  girl ;  no  matter  how  you  look  at  it. 
You  can't  educate  her  above  that." 
146 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

Upon  which  the  old  lady  nodded  her 
head  and  said  :  "  Yes,  yes ;  of  course  ; 
this  is  what  I  Ve  always  said ;  this  is 
what  we  are  coming  to  !  " 

And  Johnny  Graham  rolled  up  his 
tools  in  his  greasy  leather  apron,  and 
went  home,  pondering  deeply.  He  was 
not  in  the  least  angry  at  the  old  lady ;  he 
was  simply  incapable  of  understanding 
her.  But  that  night  he  thought  it  over, 
and  pointed  out  to  himself  that,  after  all, 
if  Annie's  mind  was  set  that  way,  there 
was  no  use  in  her  waiting  to  spend  her 
money  till  he  was  dead  and  gone. 

"  I  '11  probably  be  livin'  twenty  years 
yet,"  he  thought,  after  some  calculation, 
"  and  Annie  maybe  would  be  too  old  for 
a  girls'  college  then.  She  'd  better  go 
now;  and  anyway  it  might  be  a  good 
investment  of  the  money  ;  she  might 
set  up  as  a  teacher,  maybe,  after  she  got 
learned.  They  do  say  Councilman  Welch's 
daughter  got  four  hundred  dollars  for 
teachin'  in  the  Primary  School ;  and 
that 's  twenty  per  cent,  interest  on  two 
thousand  dollars ;  I  believe  it 's  a  good 
thing!" 

147 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

It  was  then  that  Annie  came  in,  look 
ing,  it  chanced,  a  little  pale,  and,  perhaps, 
a  little  wistful.  Annie  was  not  discon 
tented  ;  she  had  no  aspirations  ;  only  the 
child  was  vaguely  aware  of  an  emptiness 
in  her  life.  And  she  had  stopped  at  the 
Public  Library  as  she  came  home  from 
her  work,  and  had  read  an  article  in  a 
magazine  concerning  a  College  for  Women 
in  another  State. 

"That 's  what  I  'd  do  if  I  were  rich,"  she 
thought,  as  she  walked  home.  "  I  'd  go 
there  and  study." 

So  she  was  a  little  absent,  even  when 
she  kissed  her  father,  and  heard  him 
tell  all  about  the  big  house  where  the 
rich  old  woman  lived  all  by  herself,  be 
cause  she  had  quarreled  with  her  only 
daughter. 

"  Seems  strange,  now,  to  quarrel  with 
your  children,"  said  Johnny,  buttering 
his  bread  on  the  tablecloth,  and  then, 
tilting  his  chair  back,  eating  it  with  great 
contentment. 

After  supper  he  told  Annie  what  he 
had  planned  for  her.  Her  amazement  at 
her  father's  wealth  was  almost  as  keen  a 
148 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

delight  to  Johnny  as  was  her  impetuous 
refusal  to  use  it,  and  her  tears  because 
he  was  "so  good"  to  her;  almost  as 
keen  a  joy  as  her  final  yielding  to  the 
logic  of  his  urging,  that,  after  all,  the 
family  would  be  better  off  if  she  could 
teach,  and  earn  a  big  salary.  "  Six  hun 
dred  dollars,  maybe,"  he  said,  stretching 
his  imagination  for  the  purpose  of  con 
vincing  her. 

So  it  was  arranged.  Annie  Graham 
was  to  go  away  to  study ;  she  was  to  fit 
herself  to  be  a  teacher ;  she  was  to  be 
educated  into  her  father's  intellectual  su 
perior  ;  she  was  to  be  raised  "  above  her 
station."  Would  it  be  a  failure  or  a  suc 
cess  ?  Would  she  be  happy  or  most 
miserable  ?  Would  the  little  dull,  lov 
ing,  ignorant  gasfitter  hold  or  lose  his 
girl  ? 

Well,  it  all  depends  upon  how  you  look 
at  it. 

The  result  of  the  talk  that  night  was 
that  in  September  Annie  took  the  long 
and  expensive  journey  East,  and  entered 
on  her  four  years'  course  of  study. 
149 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

Of  course,  there  was  no  coming  home 
for  the  holidays  ;  the  fifteen  hundred 
dollars  in  the  bank  could  not  stand  that ; 
nor  did  she  have  to  come  back  in  the 
long  vacation,  which  would  have  been  a 
serious  expense,  for  the  president  of  the 
college,  who  was  greatly  impressed  by 
the  girl's  ability  and  character,  permitted 
her  to  live  in  one  of  the  college  houses 
during  the  summer,  and  found  for  her  an 
opportunity  to  teach  some  little  children. 
She  earned  enough  money  to  pay  her 
board  during  those  twelve  weeks,  and  did 
not  have  to  draw  on  the  cherished  bank 
account. 

The  beginning  of  that  college  life  was 
a  strange  experience  to  Annie,  —  the 
quiet,  refined  atmosphere,  the  beauty  of 
culture,  the  conception  of  spaciousness 
and  dignity,  and  the  awaking  of  that 
sense  of  fitness  which  is  called  con 
ventionality.  To  Annie  these  things 
were  like  the  opening  of  the  eyes  of  one 
born  blind.  By  degrees  the  small  niceties 
of  life  revealed  themselves  to  her,  —  the 
delicacies  of  serving,  the  delicacies  of  liv 
ing,  the  delicacies  of  manner  and  voice 
150 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

and  thought.     She  felt  them  all  with  a 
passionate  sort  of  joy. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that  by  the 
pure  and  virgin  mind  these  things,  which 
may  be  so  worthless  in  their  lifeless  for 
mality,  are  seen  in  their  real  and  funda 
mental  nobility,  and  are  accepted  with 
the  instinct  of  religion.  At  first  Annie 
was  so  normally  unconscious  of  her  ante 
cedents  that  it  did  not  occur  to  her  to 
proclaim  that  all  these  things  were  new. 
And  then,  by  and  by,  having  eaten  of 
this  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  there  came  to  her  a  certain  deep 
spiritual  experience  ;  she  recognized  that 
the  root  of  conventionality,  the  beginning 
of  the  sense  of  fitness,  lay  in  character ; 
therefore  she  knew  no  shame  that  her 
father  ate  with  his  knife,  or  sat  in  his 
shirt-sleeves,  or  did  many  unlovely  things. 
She  did  not  like  them  ;  but  she  knew  no 
shame,  only  love.  But  it  was  then  that, 
very  simply,  she  took  occasion  to  say  that 
her  father,  who  was  a  mechanic,  had  sent 
her  here  to  college,  so  that  she  might  be 
fitted  to  support  herself  by  teaching. 
She  said  this  because  she  reconized  an- 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

other  point  of  view,  and,  recognizing  it, 
felt  a  certain  lack  of  straightforwardness 
in  keeping  silent ;  and  also  because  she 
was  proud  of  Johnny  Graham.  Then 
she  forgot  it.  It  was  too  unimportant  to 
think  of. 

She  assimilated  all  these  new  ideas, 
and  felt  them  and  lived  them,  as  though 
she  had  been  to  the  manner  born.  Her 
very  face  reflected  them.  She  was  al 
most  a  beautiful  young  woman.  Her 
deep  eyes  looked  out  from  under  her 
straight,  pure  brows  with  a  certain  high 
directness  of  glance  and  tranquil  self- 
poise  which  gave  a  sense  of  breeding 
which  was  inescapable.  The  fact  that 
she  had  said  that  she  was  poor  was  only 
in  its  way  another  proof  of  her  superior 
ity —  so  some  of  the  college-girls  said, 
who  went  into  schoolgirl  ecstasies  about 
her. 

"  You  know  it 's  vulgar  to  be  rich,"  a 
young  man  told  her  one  evening,  as  they 
talked  together  in  the  June  dusk.  It 
was  Annie's  fifth  year,  and  for  the  first 
time  she  was  going  home  in  the  long 
vacation.  A  scholarship,  and  four  sum- 
152 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

mers  of  teaching  some  little  children  in 
a  country  house  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
village,  had  meant  that  for  the  last  two 
years  Johnny  Graham's  bank  account 
had  been  recuperating,  a  very,  very  little  ; 
at  all  events,  there  had  been  no  drain 
upon  it. 

And  now  Annie  was  going  home.  She 
had  won  the  highest  honors  of  her  class, 
and  had  even  been  offered  a  position  on 
the  college  staff,  and  her  happiness  was 
as  frank  as  a  child's. 

"  In  so  many  weeks  I  '11  see  father. 
In  so  many  days!"  — she  kept  saying 
to  herself.  And  now  it  had  come  to 
Saturday  evening,  and  she  was  to  start 
home  on  Monday.  She  was  walking 
back  from  her  little  pupils'  house,  where 
she  had  said  good-by  until  September. 
She  was  not  alone. 

A  certain  Dick  Temple,  a  cousin  of 
her  pupils'  mother,  had  a  way  of  running 
down  from  town  to  spend  Sundays  with 
the  Pauls,  to  play,  he  said,  with  the  chil 
dren,  and  get  in  some  rowing  on  the  river, 
and  to  exercise  his  cousin  John's  polo 
ponies,  and  —  to  see  Annie  Graham. 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

But  this  last  was  not  so  stated  in  the 
bond. 

He  had  a  way  of  appearing  in  time  to 
walk  across  the  campus  with  her,  after 
little  Kate's  music  lesson  Saturday  after 
noon,  and  once  or  twice  he  had  beguiled 
her  into  his  boat,  and  they  had  gone 
floating  down  the  river  in  the  twilight, 
talking  of  everything  in  heaven  and  earth. 
Being  young,  religion  had  been  their  first 
theme  ;  and  then,  by  and  by,  love  ;  —  in 
the  abstract,  of  course.  A  month  ago, 
they  both  had  feared  themselves  incapa 
ble  of  experiencing  this  beautiful  emo 
tion  —  Annie,  because  she  was  going  to 
devote  herself  to  study  and  her  father ; 
Dick,  because  he  had  outlived  such 
things,  and  was  very  bitter  and  cynical 
and  mysterious  in  his  allusions  to  life, 
which,  he  said,  "he  knew."  Sometimes 
they  talked  of  their  future ;  and  it  was 
then  that  Annie  had  told  him,  smiling, 
that  she  had  no  such  luxurious  prospects 
as  those  which  he  had  been  outlining  for 
himself,  —  travel,  and  study,  and  the  phi 
lanthropic  opportunities  of  great  wealth. 

They  were  walking  slowly  along  under 
154 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

the  great  elms  toward  her  door ;  it  had 
rained  earlier  in  the  day,  and  the  worn 
bricks  of  the  narrow  pavement  held  here 
and  there  shallow  pools  of  water ;  the  sun 
struck  across  the  wet  grass  in  a  low  flood 
of  gold  ;  and  there  was  the  scent  of  young 
leaves  and  roses  in  the  air. 

"  We  are  poor  people,"  Annie  had 
said,  with  an  amused  look  ;  "  I  'm  going 
to  teach  school  and  wear  spectacles,  and 
be  very  stern  and  learned." 

"Ah,  well,"  returned  the  young  man, 
"  it 's  the  thing  to  be  poor  nowadays ; 
it's  awfully  vulgar  to  be  rich!  It's 
queer,  now,  when  you  think  of  it,  Miss 
Graham,  how  many  people  in  our  class 
have  lost  their  money,  is  n't  it  ?  " 

"  We  Ve  never  had  it  to  lose,"  Annie 
said  ;  "  the  family  fortunes  are  to  rise 
on  school-teaching." 

Dick  glanced  at  her  with  quick  admira 
tion  in  his  handsome  young  eyes.  He 
was  twenty-four,  but  he  blundered  over 
his  words  like  a  schoolboy. 

"Miss  Graham,"  he  said,  "you  won't 
mind  if  I  say  I  think  it 's  awfully  fine  in 
you,  don't  you  know,  to  teach,  and  all 
155 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

that  sort  of  thing?  Of  course,  girls  do 
things  now.  I  mean  nice  girls,  don't 
you  know.  Why,  cousin  Kate  gave 
music  lessons  before  she  married  ;  and 
she  was  a  Townsend.  Still,  it 's  people 
like  that,  don't  you  know,  that  can  afford 
to  do  things  like  that !  " 

"  I  don't  suppose  any  one  can  afford 
to  be  dependent,"  Annie  said  simply, 
"  and  my  father  is  really  poor,  Mr.  Tern- 
pie." 

Her  beautiful  direct  look  as  she  said 
this  made  the  young  fellow's  heart  sud 
denly  leap.  He  wanted  to  burst  out  and 
tell  her  how  much  he  admired  her; 
admired  ?  no,  loved  her !  That  was  the 
word.  Yes,  he,  who  had  thought  he  had 
outlived  all  that  sort  of  thing.  All  in  a 
moment  he  felt  that  he  wanted  to  tell  her 
this ;  but  she  seemed  so  remote  that  he 
dared  not  speak. 

"  I  suppose  I  ought  to  get  my  governor 
to  go  and  call  on  hers,"  he  reflected  ; 
"  these  decayed  gentlefolks  are  death  on 
propriety.  But  maybe  she  would  n't  look 
at  me,  anyway,"  he  added  to  himself,  in 
a  miserable  afterthought ;  for  she  began 
156 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

to  speak  in  such  an  interested  way  of 
some  mathematical  work  she  had  to  do 
that  night,  that  he  felt  there  was  no 
room  for  him  in  her  thoughts.  He  left 
her  at  the  college  door  and  went  back, 
ardent  and  despairing,  to  confide  in  his 
cousin  Kate,  who,  it  must  be  admitted, 
had  rather  a  startled  expression  when  he 
told  her  he  was  "  all  bowled  over  by  Miss 
Graham." 

"But,  Dick,  what  would  your  father 
say  if  it  got  serious  ?  Cousin  Henry  has 
such  ideas,  you  know.  She's  a  charm 
ing  girl,  but  we  don't  know  anything 
about  her  people." 

"We  know  they  are  poor,"  Dick  said 
boldly  ;  "  but  that  does  n't  matter  in  the 
least.  Surely  you  are  not  so  narrow, 
Cousin  Kate,  as  to  think  it  matters  ? " 

"  No,  that  does  n't  matter,  of  course," 
cousin  Kate  said  doubtfully. 

As  for  Annie,  she  went,  smiling  a  little, 
and  blushing  a  little,  upstairs  to  her  room. 
But  she  did  no  work  in  higher  mathe 
matics  that  night. 

Instead,  she  finished  her  packing,  and 

JS7 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

wrote  her  last  semi-weekly  letter  of  the 
term  to  her  father.  To  be  sure,  he  would 
get  it  just  a  day  or  two  before  she  came 
herself ;  but  she  would  not  have  had 
Johnny  Graham  miss  that  Saturday  letter 
for  a  good  deal.  She  knew  he  would  carry 
it  about  in  his  pocket,  and  read  it  over  and 
over,  and  put  it  on  the  wooden  chair  be 
side  his  bed  at  night.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
little  more  affectionate,  this  last  letter, 
than  usual ;  she  told  him  about  the 
weather,  and  that  she  would  start  on 
Monday,  and  would  telegraph  him  when 
to  expect  her.  And  something  of  the 
progress  of  her  two  pupils  ;  and  how  she 
had  made  an  experiment  in  the  labora 
tory,  and  had  burned  her  ringers  ;  and  — 
and  that  she  had  met  an  interesting  man, 
a  cousin  of  Mrs.  Paul's.  He  had  taken 
her  out  rowing  once  or  twice,  she  said. 
And,  oh !  she  was  so  happy  that  she 
was  coming  home !  She  could  hardly 
believe  that  it  was  true,  she  was  so  glad. 
And  then  she  said  she  was  always  his 
little  girl  who  loved  him  —  "  Annie." 

Then  when  it  was  written,  she  put  her 
head  down  on  her  arms,  folded  upon  her 
158 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

writing-table ;  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes 
when  she  lifted  it  again. 

"  When  he  said  *  our  class,'  ought  I 
to  have  spoken  ? "  she  asked  herself. 
"  No,  he  must  know ;  I  told  Mrs.  Paul. 
No,  no,  I  couldn't!"  And  all  her  love 
and  all  her  pride  for  her  father  rebelled 
against  the  slight  to  him  which  such  a 
confession  would  have  been ;  it  would 
have  seemed  to  imply  that  he  was  less 
gentle  in  soul  than  Richard  Temple  him 
self,  or  any  one  else. 

Mr.  Temple  saw  her  at  church  the 
next  day  and  walked  home  with  her ; 
although  she  kept  all  the  while  on  Mrs. 
Paul's  right,  while  Dick  had  to  walk  on 
the  outside  and  could  only  look  across  at 
her,  which  did  not  please  him  in  the  least. 
She  did  not  talk  to  him  very  much,  but 
she  seemed  to  have  a  good  deal  to  say  to 
his  cousin,  which  perplexed  her  adorer, 
for  though  he  had  a  proper  regard  for  the 
stout  and  estimable  Mrs.  Paul,  he  could 
not  see  why  Miss  Graham  should  talk  to 
her  with  such  apparent  interest,  when  an 
intelligent  young  man  was  really  eager 
for  a  look  or  a  word.  He  heard  her 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

laughing  a  little  about  going  home  "  like 
a  stranger  and  foreigner,"  she  said. 

"  I  have  n't  seen  South  Bend  for  nearly 
five  years  ;  you  know  it  is  such  an  expen 
sive  journey." 

Mrs.  Paul  said  yes,  she  supposed  it 
was.  "  It  takes  four  days  and  five  nights 
to  get  there,  does  n't  it  ?  It  seems  to  me 
I  passed  through  it  once.  I  suppose 
those  Western  places  are  very  progres 
sive,  are  n't  they  ?  They  are  not  shocked 
at  the  idea  of  a  university  education  for 
women.  One  runs  up  against  that  here 
very  often." 

Annie  shook  her  head,  smiling.  "  Is  n't 
it  funny  to  think  that  people  do  really 
feel  that  it  is  unfeminine;  'threatening  to 
the  womanly  woman,'  as  they  say." 

"  I  've  come  to  think  that  the  '  womanly 
woman'  means  the  brainless  woman," 
Mrs.  Paul  said. 

"  What  fools  people  are  who  feel  that 
way  about  the  higher  education  of  wo 
men,"  Dick  broke  in.  "  It 's  incredible  ! 
Miss  Graham,  I  shall  be  passing  through 
South  Bend  in  a  fortnight  or  so ;  may  I 
call  ? " 

160 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

"  Of  course ;  I  shall  be  delighted  to  see 
you,"  Annie  said,  "and  my  father  will  be 
so  glad  to  see  any  friend  of  Mrs.  Paul's  ; 
he  knows  how  kind  you  have  been  to 
me,"  she  ended,  with  an  affectionate  look 
at  Dick's  cousin. 

Then  Mr.  Temple,  with  an  eager  tim 
idity  so  foreign  to  him  that  Mrs.  Paul 
suppressed  a  smile  with  difficulty,  won 
dered  if  Miss  Graham  would  have  time 
to  go  out  on  the  river  that  evening  ?  He 
knew  she  would  be  awfully  busy ;  but  it 
would  be  a  heavenly  evening  on  the 
river  !  He  was  so  promptly  assured  that 
she  should  not  have  time  that  the  poor 
fellow  looked  very  blank  ;  in  fact,  he  was 
distinctly  cross  in  the  family  circle  for  the 
rest  of  the  day.  At  night  he  softened 
and  tried  to  be  amiable,  for  he  was  con 
strained  to  be  confidential,  and  he  knew 
that  "  Cousin  Kate  "  would  not  hesitate 
to  snub  him  unless  he  made  himself 
agreeable. 

"  Now,  really,  don't  you  think  she 's 

very  unusual  ?  "  he  insisted,  after  having 

told  Mrs.   Paul  all  the   pleasant   things 

which   he    could    remember    that    Miss 

161 


COUNTING   THE   COST 

Graham  had  said  to  him  about  her  two 
little  pupils. 

"  If  you  mean  Miss  Graham,  why,  yes, 
I  do  think  she  's  unusual,  Dick." 

"Did  you  ever  notice,"  said  the  fatu 
ous  Dick,  "how  softly  her  hair  grows 
around  her  forehead  ?  And  her  eyes  — 
what  color  are  her  eyes  ? " 

"  I  'm  sure  I  can't  say,"  Mrs.  Paul  an 
swered  dryly.  "  Dick,  would  you  mind 
going  in  and  getting  me  a  shawl  ?  It 's 
rather  cool  out  here  on  the  terrace." 
When  he  came  back  she  had  made  up 
her  mind  how  to  proceed.  "  Now,  Dick, 
listen,  I  'm  not  a  snob,  but  "  — 

"  If  you  are  going  to  say  anything 
about  that  beautiful  creature's  working 
for  her  living,"  Dick  threatened,  "you 
might  as  well  stop  on  the  spot." 

"  Of  course  I  'm  not  going  to  say  any 
thing  about  her  working  for  her  living ; 
why  should  I  ?  I  worked  for  my  living 
before  I  married  John.  You  know  I  'm 
not  a  snob,  but  I  do  believe  in  class.  I 
don't  mean  to  be  unkind,  and  certainly 
she  is  a  charming  girl,  and  —  ladylike. 
But  —  there  is  something,  I  can't  tell 
162 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

what  it  is  —  that  seems  as  if  she  had  not 
always  been  used  to  things  " 

Dick  Temple  said  something  between 
his  teeth,  and  his  cousin  flung  her  head 
up. 

"Dick!" 

"  Well,  it  makes  a  man  want  to  be  em 
phatic,  Cousin  Kate,  —  such  nonsense  ! 
Class  ?  We  're  Americans,  thank  the 
Lord !  And  talk  about  ancestors,  I 
never  saw  descent  so  plainly.  Look  at 
the  way  she  carries  her  head  !  And  her 
voice,  her  manner !  Darn  it,  because  a 
girl 's  poor  "  — 

"  Good-night,  Richard,"  said  Mrs.  Paul, 
rising  with  great  dignity. 

"  Oh,  hold  on  !  Don't  get  mad.  Hold 
your  base.  I  apologize ;  only,  it  seems 
pretty  hard  to  be  down  on  a  girl " 

"  You  know  I  'm  not  down  on  her ;  I 
like  her  very  much ;  I  respect  her  very 
much." 

"Well,  then,  what 's  the  matter?"  de 
manded  Dick  boldly. 

"  I  don't  know.  Only  I  have  a  vague 
recollection  that  when  she  came  to  teach 
the  children  she  mentioned,  in  a  casual 
163 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

sort  of  way,  something  about  —  about 
her  home,  or  her  father  and  mother,  or 
something.  I  can't  really  remember,  but 
I  know  I  gained  the  impression  that  she 
was  "  — 

"  Poor  ?  "  Dick  burst  in.  "  Of  course 
she 's  poor.  She  has  never  made  any 
secret  of  that.  Why  should  she  ?  Only 
a  cad  would  do  that." 

"I  don't  mean  poor,"  Mrs.  Paul  said, 
frowning.  "  I  wish  you  would  have  some 
manners,  Dick,  and  not  interrupt.  I 
merely  mean  that  a  young  man  has  no 
right  to  pay  attention  to  a  girl  in  another 
class  unless  he  means  to  follow  it  up.  I 
despise  a  trifler,  Dick." 

"You  don't  despise  him  any  more 
than  I  do,"  Dick  returned  loftily.  "But 
there  isn't  any  question  of  class  here. 
We  don't  have  any  higher  class  than 
hers ;  and  as  for  '  following  it  up,'  as  you 
say  —  if  a  fellow  thought  there  was  any 
chance  for  him  with  that  woman  he  'd 
follow  it  up  quick  enough,  and  ask  her  to 
marry  him  !  Yes,  and  he  ought  to  do  it 
as  formally  as  though  she  were  a  prin 
cess.  She  is  a  princess  !  He  ought  to  go 
164 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

and  ask  her  father  if  he  might  ask  her. 
Her  poverty,  which  seems  to  trouble  you 
so  much,  Cousin  Kate,  has  no  bearing  on 
the  situation." 

Poor  Dick  was  smarting  with  Annie's 
apparent  coldness  and  his  cousin's  snob 
bishness  —  so  he  called  it ;  but  there  was 
really  no  excuse  for  bursting  out  at  Mrs. 
Paul  in  this  way ;  and  it  was  no  wonder 
that  she  said  good-night  with  some  as 
perity,  and  went  upstairs  and  told  her 
husband  that  Dick  was  a  perfect  goose, 
besides  being  rather  a  cub. 

"  He  's  twenty-four  and  old  enough  to 
know  better,"  she  said.  "  Oh,  dear,  I  do 
wish  his  father  was  here  !  " 

"  You  'd  better  wish  her  father  was 
here ;  then  you  'd  know  the  pit  whence 
she  was  digged,"  John  Paul  said.  "Of 
course,  if  he  ever  sold  cotton  by  the  yard, 
Dick's  future  happiness  would  be  im 
periled." 

"Now,  John,  don't  be  horrid,"  said  his 
wife  impatiently ;  "  you  know  perfectly 
well  what  I  mean.  I  'm  not  a  snob,  as 
I  told  Dick,  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
class." 

165 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

"  If  Dick  's  worth  anything,"  pro 
nounced  John  Paul,  standing  before  his 
glass  and  ripping  his  collar  off  the  stud 
with  a  vicious  tug,  "  he  '11  marry  that  girl 
if  her  father  is  a  hod-carrier." 


II 

Five  years !  It  was  a  long  time. 
Johnny,  standing  in  the  railroad  station, 
his  heart  beating  high  with  pride  and 
joy,  could  n't  help  crying  out  when  he 
saw  her :  — 

"  Why,  how  you  Ve  growed,  Annie  ! 
Bless  my  heart,  if  you  ain't  growed ! " 
But  his  eyes  were  misty,  so  perhaps  it 
was  that  made  his  little  Annie  look  so 
tall.  He  had  not  recognized  her  for  a 
moment,  —  this  lady  who,  with  the  tears 
trembling  in  her  eyes,  came  up  to  him 
and  took  his  hands  and  cried  out,  "  Fa 
ther  ! "  Afterward  he  said  he  did  n't 
know  why  he  had  taken  her  for  a  lady, 
for,  sakes  alive,  her  clothes  were  plain 
enough.  He  was  quite  distressed  about 
her  clothes. 

"  You  Ve  stinted  yourself,  Annie,"  he 
166 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

reproached  her  as  they  went  home  in  the 
street  cars.  "  You  ought  to  be  havin'  a 
silk  dress,  lookin'  the  way  you  do.  Why, 
I  took  you  for  a  lady,  Annie.  You  ought 
to  have  fine  clothes,  my  pretty ;  we  '11 
take  some  money  out  of  the  bank  and 
get  you  a  regular  silk  dress,"  he  told  her, 
scolding  her  and  loving  her,  and  bursting 
with  pride,  and  taking  up  their  inter 
course  just  where  it  had  paused,  five 
years  ago.  She  was  a  pretty  girl  and  a 
great  learner,  Johnny  thought ;  but  she 
was  just  his  Annie. 

It  was  late  when  they  got  home.  He 
had  left  the  kitchen  fire  clear  and  ready 
for  the  steak  Annie  would  broil,  and  the 
gas  was  flaring  wide  from  new  burners, 
and  Johnny  had  bought  a  long  plush  scarf 
for  the  top  of  the  mantelpiece  over  the 
kitchen  range.  When  Annie  was  fairly 
in  the  house,  and  the  door  was  shut,  it 
seemed  as  though  the  happiness  of  heaven 
had  come  into  the  little  kitchen.  Johnny 
laughed,  and  drew  the  back  of  his  hand 
across  his  nose,  and  sniffed  and  blinked, 
and  the  tears  ran  freely  down  his  little 
cheeks.  He  walked  round  and  round 
167 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

Annie  in  critical  inspection ;  and  ran  her 
from  room  to  room,  even  up  to  Dave 
Duggan's  attic,  to  show  her  how  un 
changed  everything  was.  He  made  her 
come  into  the  parlor  and  showed  her  the 
faded  ribbons  and  tottering  plush  frames. 

"  I  dusted  'em  every  Sunday,  Annie," 
he  said.  And  then  he  told  her  how  he 
had  turned  out  the  person  to  whom  he 
had  rented  her  old  room.  "  Well,  now, 
he  was  set  on  stayin',"  Johnny  said ; 
"he  was  always  sayin'  he  wanted  to  see 
you,  but  I  guess  Dave  Duggan  was  just 
as  well  pleased  not  to  have  him  round. 
Dave  ain't  married  yet,  Annie."  Then 
Johnny  laughed  very  much,  and  added, 
winking  at  his  own  joke,  that  he  guessed 
Dave  had  forgotten  her,  she  'd  been  away 
so  long. 

The  wonderful  thing  about  it  all,  and 
the  beautiful  thing  about  it  all,  was  that 
this  little  man  did  not  in  the  least  care 
that  his  Annie  was  an  educated  woman ; 
he  did  not  even  know  it. 

It  seemed  as  if  Annie  could  not  enough 
show  the  tenderness  that  made  her  heart 
ache  with  its  swelling.  She  sat  beside 
168 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

him,  holding  his  work  -  roughened  hands 
in  hers,  and  told  him  over  and  over  about 
these  five  years  which  he  had  given  her ; 
she  knew,  and  she  was  feeling  as  she 
spoke,  how  every  joy  of  study,  and  every 
pang  of  the  happiness  of  appreciation  had 
come  from  these  patient,  loving,  grimy 
old  hands.  "  You  've  given  me  every 
thing,"  her  heart  was  saying,  "and  I 
love  you!  I  can  never  say  how  much." 
But  it  seemed  as  though  it  were  saying, 
also,  "  Why,  why  did  you  put  me  where 
I  was  to  learn  that  you  were  you,  and  I 
was  I?" 

One  looks  on  at  such  a  situation  and 
says,  "If  it  could  stop  here,  it  might  be 
possible."  But  it  cannot  stop  there.  It 
is  not  the  adjustment  of  the  relations 
between  parents  and  child  which  is  the 
difficult  thing.  The  acceptance  of  a  dif 
ferent  point  of  view  by  these  three  may 
even  come  without  much  pain.  No ;  it 
is  the  outsiders  who  make  the  situation 
impossible  —  the  father's  cronies,  the 
mother's  friends,  the  acquaintances  of 
the  untaught  girlhood.  The  impossibility 
revealed  itself  that  very  night  when  Dave 
169 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

Duggan  came  in  to  welcome  her  home. 
Annie  gave  him  her  hand,  flushing  and 
paling  at  his  familiarity,  his  boisterous, 
facetious  "  Hollo,  Annie !  How  you 
was  ? "  In  him,  after  that  easy  greeting, 
the  first  note  of  the  difference  made  for 
all  time  was  struck;  for  he  grew  con 
scious  and  uneasy,  and  scuffled  his  feet, 
and  cleared  his  throat,  and  laughed  in  a 
silly  way.  Yet  all  the  old  admiration 
spoke  in  his  eyes.  Johnny  was  full  of 
significant  jokes,  and  kept  elbowing  An 
nie  and  winking ;  and  Dave's  loud  re 
bukes  of  his  host's  "fun"  were  even 
more  meaning. 

At  nearly  midnight  Annie  went  up 
stairs,  tired,  white,  smiling ;  and  lay  open- 
eyed  until  dawn. 

Dick  Temple's  intention  of  "passing 
through  South  Bend  in  a  fortnight "  was 
a  little  delayed.  Cousin  Kate's  vague 
misgivings  took  the  form  of  a  postscript 
in  a  casual  note  to  his  mother ;  there  was 
no  more  than  a  word  or  two  about  Dick's 
tendresse  for  a  pretty  college -girl  who 
had  been  the  children's  governess  during 
170 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

the  last  three  summers  while  they  were 
out  of  town  ;  that  was  all.  But  it  was 
enough.  And  Mrs.  Paul  felt  she  had 
done  her  duty. 

"  And  perhaps  prevented  Dick  from 
doing  his,"  her  husband  commented 
grimly. 

"  If  he  can  be  prevented,  he  'd  better 
be  ;  for  he  would  n't  be  good  enough  for 
Annie  Graham !  "  cousin  Kate  declared 
with  much  spirit,  and  immediately  be 
came,  in  her  own  mind,  the  champion  of 
the  incipient  love  affair. 

Her  letter  was  passed  on  by  Dick's 
mother  to  Dick's  father,  who  said  good- 
naturedly  that  the  boy  was  a  jackass. 

"  The  young  lady  is  probably  too  good 
for  him,"  said  Mr.  Henry  Temple,  "  but 
I  'm  not  going  to  have  that  boy  marry 
ing  John  Paul's  governess  without  a  few 
remarks  from  me." 

Mr.  Temple  telegraphed  his  son  not  to 
leave  town  on  the  day  he  had  arranged, 
as  he  wished  to  see  him ;  and  then  he 
came  all  the  way  from  Old  Chester  for 
the  purpose  of  making  the  remarks, 
which,  of  course,  were  to  be  general ;  it 
171 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

would  give  the  matter  too  much  impor 
tance  to  treat  it  as  particular  or  probable. 
So,  in  a  casual  way,  he  referred  to  cousin 
Kate's  letter,  and  enjoined  his  son  not  to 
be  a  fool.  Dick's  instantly  aggressive 
attitude  and  skill  in  "answering  back" 
were  most  surprising  to  Mr.  Temple. 
A  man  is  always  surprised  at  his  son's 
ability  in  this  direction ;  it  is  as  though 
his  own  hand  or  foot  suddenly  acquired 
individuality.  Furthermore,  Richard  was 
very  sentimental,  and  had  much  to  say 
of  his  father's  un-American  point  of  view 
and  of  his  own  readiness  to  marry  a 
"woman  he  loved  "  (if  she  'd  have  him)  if 
she  were  a  washerwoman. 

"As  for  Miss  Graham,"  said  Dick, 
"  I  Ve  no  right  even  to  speak  of  her ;  but 
she 's  a  lady,  and  an  angel "  — 

"  Oh,  Lord !  "  groaned  Mr.  Temple. 
"I  wonder  if  I  ever  was  as  young  as 
you,  Dickon  ? " 

But  he  was  really  disturbed,  and  wrote 
to  a  friend  who  owned  the  great  South 
Bend  Rolling  and  Smelting  Furnaces, 
and  might  be  expected  to  know  who  and 
what  the  Grahams  were. 
172 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

Meantime,  Dick  Temple,  twice  as  much 
in  earnest  for  his  father's  not  unreasona 
ble  expostulation,  packed  his  things  and 
started  for  the  West.  It  was  a  hot  July 
afternoon  when  he  arrived  in  South  Bend ; 
he  was  fretted  by  the  heat  and  his  own 
impatience  and  the  stupidity  of  the  land 
lord  of  the  hotel  in  being  unable  to  tell 
him  where  Mr.  Graham  lived. 

"  There  's  no  family  by  that  name  on 
the  hill,  sir,"  he  said.  "  Graham  —  Gra 
ham  —  there  's  some  Grahams  here  in 
the  directory ;  what 's  the  gentleman's 
business,  sir?" 

"I  don't  know,"  Dick  said,  fuming. 
"What  sort  of  a  place  is  this,  anyhow, 
that  you  don't  know  where  people  live  ? 
It 's  small  enough  for  you  to  know  every 
body"— 

"  We  Ve  twenty  thousand  inhabitants, 
young  man,"  said  the  landlord  with  much 
offense.  "The  only  Graham  I  know  is 
Johnny;  he's  a  gasfitter,  and  does  odd 
jobs  here  once  in  a  while  "  — 

"  Have  your  clerk  copy  all  those  Gra 
ham  addresses,"  said  Dick  coldly.  "  I  '11 
go  round  till  I  find  the  person  I  wish. 
173 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

Unfortunately  I  don't  know  the  gentle- 
man's  first  name.  Have  you  got  any 
kind  of  conveyance  in  this  place  ?  Just 
have  a  hack  called,  will  you  ? " 

He  spoke  with  the  insolence  of  tone 
peculiar  to  well-bred  young  men,  and  he 
walked  to  the  open  door  and  stood  wait 
ing  for  the  carriage  and  frowning  out  at 
the  passers-by.  There  was  a  red  glare 
from  the  furnaces  on  the  other  side  of 
the  river,  shifting  and  fading  on  the  coils 
of  black  smoke  which  lay  motionless  in 
the  still,  hot  air.  The  street  was  the 
narrow  unlovely  street  of  the  small  man 
ufacturing  town  of  the  West. 

"  It 's  a  beastly  place,"  Dick  said  to 
himself  with  an  irritation  which  had  its 
root  in  some  formless  apprehension ;  and 
he  got  into  the  lumbering,  rattling  hack 
and  slammed  the  door  with  vicious  em 
phasis.  "  What  on  earth  does  her  father 
live  here  for,  anyhow  ?  "  he  said  to  him 
self. 

The  carriage  drew  up  first  at  a  small 

market,  where  piles  of  faded  vegetables, 

flanked  by  glass  cases  of  meats,  jutted 

out  upon  the  pavement ;  a  man  in  a  dirty 

174 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

white  butcher's  frock  leaned  against  the 
door-post,  and  two  jets  of  gas  flared  and 
flickered  from  long  iron  stand-pipes. 

The  driver  leaned  down  from  his  box 
and  called  out  in  friendly  tones  to  know 
if  this  was  the  place. 

"  Idiot ! "  said  Dick  under  his  breath. 
"  Of  course  not.  Try  the  next  address." 

This  was  a  forlorn,  untidy  -  looking 
house  on  a  side  street.  Lodgers'  heads 
were  thrust  out  of  the  windows  as  Dick 
climbed  the  steps  and  inquired  whether 
Miss  Annie  Graham  lived  there  ?  He 
was  conscious  of  a  distinct  relief  when  he 
went  back  again  to  the  carriage.  They 
went  to  two  other  houses,  but  there  was 
no  Miss  Annie  Graham. 

"  I  guess,"  said  the  hackman,  "  we  '11 
have  to  cross  over  to  the  other  side  of 
the  river.  There 's  a  Graham  over  there, 
at  Jack's  Corners.  Jack's  Corners  is  a 
fine  suburb,  sir." 

Dick's  heart  rose. 

"All  right;  goon,"  he  said.  "Can't 
you  hurry  those  beasts  of  yours  up  ? " 

And  so  it  was  that,  about  seven  o'clock, 
the  cabman  drew  up  before  a  small,  de- 
J7S 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

tached  frame  house  on  the  Mill  Road. 
It  was  so  hot  that  the  kitchen  windows 
were  wide  open,  and  one  could  see  the 
table  drawn  up  between  them,  and  a  lit 
tle  man  in  his  shirt-sleeves  eating  his 
supper.  Opposite  him,  by  the  other  win 
dow,  was  a  girl  with  a  fan  in  her  hand, 
and  between  them  were  two  other  per 
sons,  for  Johnny  was  entertaining  that 
night.  Dave  Duggan,  uncomfortable,  he 
knew  not  why  (although  it  certainly  was 
not  the  weather,  for  he  had,  with  great 
good  sense,  removed  his  coat),  sat  on 
Annie's  left;  and  next  to  him,  beside 
Johnny,  was  an  enormously  fat  woman, 
in  a  sort  of  loose  white  sack.  This  was 
Mrs.  Pugsley,  who  was  one  of  those 
neighboring  ladies  of  thwarted  step 
mother  potentialities.  "  But  you  never 
know  what  '11  happen,"  Mrs.  Pugsley  of 
ten  remarked,  and  dropped  in  this  hot 
July  night  in  a  friendly  way  to  see  if 
Annie  was  making  her  father  comfort 
able.  It  was  Mrs.  Pugsley's  opinion  that 
all  this  learning  was  n't  no  good.  "  Bet 
ter  know  how  to  dish  a  meal's  victuals," 
said  Mrs.  Pugsley,  "  than  be  readin'  story 
176 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

papers  all  the  time.  That 's  what  them 
high-school  girls  does  mostly." 

The  room  was  faintly  lighted  by  a 
kerosene  lamp  on  the  mantelpiece ;  but 
the  real  radiance  was  in  Johnny's  face, 
as  he  looked  across  a  bunch  of  roses  in 
the  middle  of  the  narrow  table  at  his 
Annie. 

"Annie  walked  out  two  miles  to  get 
them  flowers,"  he  said. 

"  Must  'a'  wanted  something  to  do," 
said  Mrs.  Pugsley. 

"  I  'd  'a'  got  'em  for  you,  Annie,"  Dave 
said  bashfully,  "if  I  'd  a-known  you 
wanted  'em."  And  it  was  just  then  that 
the  carriage  drew  up  at  the  door. 

Dick,  hot  and  disappointed  and  dis 
gusted  at  the  coachman's  stupidity  in 
bringing  him  into  this  obviously  me 
chanic's  suburb,  leaned  out  to  say, 
"  Drive  on  !  "  And  then  he  saw  her. 

There  was  a  flutter  in  the  tenement  at 
seeing  a  hack  draw  up.  Johnny  Graham 
rose,  seeing  in  a  burst  of  fancy  an  im 
portant  and  hasty  job,  and  a  carriage 
sent  to  convey  him  to  a  wilderness  of 
leaks  or  broken  tips.  Mrs.  Pugsley  con- 
177 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

ceived  the  hack  to  be  a  summons  from  a 
lady  friend  who  had  expected  to  need  her 
services  on  a  felicitous  occasion,  and  was 
instantly  agitated,  and  got  up  panting, 
and  saying  :  — 

"  Goodness  !  they  Ve  sent ! " 

But  Annie  knew. 

One  wonders  if  she  flinched,  there  in 
the  twilight.  She  rose  at  once  and 
went  to  the  front  door,  her  hand  out 
stretched  in  pleased  welcome. 

"Why,  Mr.  Temple!  This  is  very 
pleasant,"  she  said.  "  Father,  dear,  this 
is  Mr.  Temple." 

Dick's  face  was  white.  He  took  Johnny 
Graham's  hand  and  bowed,  with  some 
murmured  reference  to  pleasure. 

"This  is  my  friend,  Mr.  Duggan,  Mr. 
Temple,"  Annie  went  on  placidly,  "  and 
Mrs.  Pugsley." 

Dick  bowed  twice.  He  saw  dimly,  in 
the  dusky  kitchen  interior,  two  other  fig 
ures,  one  of  which,  assisted  by  the  other, 
was  struggling  into  a  coat. 

"  Why,  now  set  down,  sir,"  Johnny 
said  joyously  ;  "  take  a  seat  and  set  down. 
Annie,  now,  can't  you  make  room  there 
178 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

by  Dave  ?  We  was  just  setting  out  to 
eat  our  tea,  sir ;  it 's  so  hot,  we  was  late, 
—  but  it's  the  style  to  be  late,  I  hear! 
I  guess  we  ain't  eat  up  everything,  have 
we,  Annie  ?  I  guess  there  's  something 
left  for  your  gentleman  friend." 

"  You  're  very  kind,"  Dick  protested 
feebly ;  but  he  sat  down,  too  bewildered 
to  find  any  excuse. 

Annie  put  a  plate  before  him,  and  told 
him  he  must  have  some  iced  tea. 

"  It 's  the  only  thing  that  makes  life 
possible  in  this  weather,"  she  said  ;  "but 
I  can't  make  father  believe  it ;  he  takes 
his  boiling." 

"Well,  sir,"  said  Johnny,  "you  had 
quite  a  jaunt  to  get  out  here,  had  n't  you  ? 
But  I  don't  mind  the  walk  myself,  back 
and  forth  from  my  work,  for  it 's  fresher 
out  here." 

"I  didn't  know  your  address,"  Dick 
said,  not  looking  at  Annie  ;  "  I  Ve  been 
driving  round  "  — 

"  When  I  saw  that  carriage  drive  up," 
Mrs.    Pugsley    said,    still    panting,    "  I 
thought  a  lady  friend  of  mine  had  sent 
for  me  ;  it  give  me  such  a  start !  " 
179 


COUNTING   THE   COST 

"Tell  me  how  you  left  Mrs.  Paul," 
Annie  asked. 

"  Oh,  thanks,  very  well,"  Dick  assured 
her;  and  there  was  a  moment's  pause. 
Mrs.  Pugsley  and  Dave  were  blankly 
silent.  Annie  talked  against  time. 

"It  was  so  nice  to  get  home.  Just 
think,  I  had  been  away  five  years,"  she 
said ;  "  that 's  a  pretty  long  time  not  to 
see  one 's  father ;  father  did  n't  know  me 
when  he  met  me  at  the  station  ;  —  now, 
I  would  have  known  you  anywhere ! " 
she  reproached  Johnny,  with  a  loving 
look. 

"  Well,  but  now,  you  'd  growed,  Annie ; 
that's  what  I  said  when  I  saw  her.  I 
says,  '  Why,  Annie,  you  Ve  growed  ! ' 
Dave,  here,  don't  see  no  change  in  her. 
But  I  do,"  Johnny  ended  proudly. 

"  You  must  have  missed  your  daughter 
very  much,"  Mr.  Temple  murmured. 

"  Well,  indeed,  an'  he  did,"  Mrs.  Pugs- 
ley  said  resentfully  ;  "  but  she  would  be 
studyin'.  She  's  that  set  on  it." 

"Miss  Graham  is  devoted  to  mathe 
matics,"  Dick  began  miserably,  "  and  — 
and  that  sort  of  thing  "  — 
180 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

He  stopped  so  abruptly  that  Mrs. 
Pugsley's  hoarse  whisper  to  Dave  Dug- 
gan  was  audible  to  all,  — 

"  Say,  is  he  Annie's  feller  ?  " 

"  Hush  !  "  said  Dave  Duggan. 

Dick  drank  his  tumbler  of  iced  tea, 
with  violent  haste,  and  even  Johnny 
looked  disconcerted.  Annie  said  some 
thing  about  the  roses. 

"The  thing  I  miss  most  in  South 
Bend  are  the  gardens,"  she  said.  "  You 
know  we  are  all  working  people  on  this 
side  of  the  river,  and  there  are  no  old 
houses,  so  there  are  no  beautiful  big 
gardens.  I  had  to  walk  far  out  into  the 
country  for  those." 

"Won't  you  have  anything  more?" 
Johnny  inquired  hospitably.  "  Take 
another  helping  of  something  ?  You 
won't  ?  Oh,  now,  take  a  taste  of  this ! 
No  ?  Well,  let 's  go  into  the  parlor, 
Annie." 

If  Annie  held   back,  no  one  saw  it. 

They  went   into  the   best  room,  where 

Johnny  set  all  the  gas  burners  flaring, 

that  the  full  glories  of  the  decorations 

181 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

might  strike  the  visitor,  who,  indeed,  saw 
nothing  but  Annie's  set  face. 

"Miss  Graham,"  he  said,  "you  are 
coming  East  again  in  September,  are  n't 
you  ? " 

"I  think  not;  I  think  I  must  never 
leave  father  again.  He  is  not  very 
strong,  and  I  want  to  be  with  him." 

"Oh,  yes,  quite  so,"  Dick  answered, 
"but"  — 

"  But  what,  Mr.  Temple  ?  " 

"  Oh,  nothing  ;  I  only  thought  —  I 
thought  you  were  to  teach  in  the  college, 
and"  — 

He  did  not  know  how  to  end  his  sen 
tence  ;  he  caught  Dave  Duggan's  eyes 
glowering  at  him,  and  Johnny's  rather 
obsequious  smile.  Johnny  had  the  true 
American  veneration  for  wealth,  and  he 
felt  that  this  gentleman  who  kept  a  hack 
waiting  for  an  hour  was  a  rich  man. 

"  I  shall  never  leave  my  father,"  Annie 
said,  in  a  low  voice. 

Now  Richard  Temple  was  not  a  mean 

or  unworthy  man ;  he  was  a  well-born, 

well-bred,  well-educated  young  American 

gentleman ;  but  he  had  been  placed  sud 

182 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

denly  at  a  cruel  disadvantage ;  his  pres 
ence  of  mind  deserted  him  —  he  was 
bewildered  and  confounded.  His  plans 
and  hopes  were  all  adrift.  He  could  not 
meet  Annie  Graham's  eyes  again ;  he 
said  good-night,  at  first  effusively,  and 
then  haughtily;  and  sneaked  out  to  his 
carriage,  anxious  only  to  escape  from  an 
intolerable  situation. 

"  Hope  you  '11  come  again  and  talk  over 
old  times  with  Annie,  sir,"  Johnny  said, 
shaking  Dick's  hand  all  the  time  that 
he  was  speaking  ;  "you  '11  call  again, 
sir  ? " 

"  Oh,  certainly,  yes,  of  course,"  Dick 
answered  wretchedly. 

But  Annie  knew  better. 

Dave  Duggan  had  watched  Annie's 
visitor  with  burning  eyes.  He  followed 
the  conversation  with  painful  intentness, 
and  a  sense  of  speed  which  made  him 
breathless.  He  wished  to  join  in  it, — • 
and  kept  moistening  his  lips  and  clearing 
his  throat,  but  he  never  found  the  cour 
age  to  speak.  His  shyness  probably 
prevented  him  from  being  rude ;  for  his 
183 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

feeling  about  Dick  was  rage,  pure  and 
simple. 

"He's  a  blamed  dude,"  he  thought  to 
himself  again  and  again  ;  but  he  could 
think  of  nothing  to  say  which  would  con 
vey  this  opinion,  and  yet  fit  into  the  con 
versation.  But  when  Dick  had  slunk 
back  to  his  carriage  Dave's  feelings  burst 
forth.  For  a  few  moments,  indeed,  the 
little  group  (except  Annie)  talked,  in 
their  excitement,  all  together. 

"Ain't  he  handsome!"  Johnny  said 
proudly ;  he  was  proud  of  anything  con 
nected  with  Annie. 

"  He 's  real  rich,  Annie,  ain't  he  ? 
Ridin'  in  hacks?"  Mrs.  Pugsley  de 
manded. 

"  He 's  a  blamed  dude ;  that 's  what  he 
is,"  Dave  said  fiercely. 

"  I  thought  he  was  your  feller,  Annie," 
Mrs.  Pugsley  declared,  panting  and  fan 
ning  herself. 

"  Well,  now,  he 's  none  too  good  to 
be,"  Johnny  announced,  chuckling. 

"  Father,  dear,  would  n't  it  be  nicer  to 
sit  out  on  the  steps,  where  it 's  cooler  ? 
I  '11  put  the  tea  things  away,  and  then 
184 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

I  '11  come,  too.  Please  —  go  !  "  she 
ended.  Johnny  looked  at  her  in  sur 
prise,  sensitive  to  every  change  in  her 
voice. 

"  Why,  now  —  Annie  ? "  he  faltered. 

"  I  '11  be  through  with  the  dishes  in  a 
few  minutes,  father,  dear,"  she  said ;  and 
so  Johnny  led  the  way  to  the  front  door 
and  placed  a  chair  on  the  hard,  black 
earth  at  the  foot  of  the  steps  for  Mrs. 
Pugsley,  and  told  Dave  to  take  off  his 
coat  again. 

"It 's  that  hot,"  Johnny  said,  "there's 
no  good  wearin'  coats." 

"Now  that  dude's  gone,  I  suppose 
there 's  no  harm  being  comfortable," 
Dave  agreed  angrily. 

They  sat  there  in  the  dusk,  Johnny 
and  Mrs.  Pugsley  talking  the  visit  over. 
They  could  hear  Annie  moving  about  in 
the  kitchen,  washing  the  dishes.  After 
a  while  Dave  Duggan  got  up  and  with 
painstaking  and  elaborate  efforts  not  to 
attract  attention  went,  with  creaking, 
clumsy  steps,  into  the  kitchen.  Annie 
stood  by  the  sink,  with  her  back  to  him. 
He  heard  her  draw  in  her  breath  in  a 
185 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

broken  sob  ;  and  then  he  saw  —  he  saw 
that  tears  were  running  down  her  face. 

"  Annie  !  "  he  said  ;  "  oh,  now,  Annie, 
don't,  don't  mind,  Annie,  dear !  "  He 
put  out  his  hands  beseechingly,  his  face 
red  and  wincing  with  feeling.  Annie 
turned  her  shoulder  toward  him,  and  set 
her  teeth.  She  drew  her  wrist  across 
her  eyes. 

"  It 's  that  dude 's  hurt  your  feelin's, 
Annie  —  darn  him  !  but  never  you  mind, 
he  ain't  worth  "  — 

"Oh,  please  go  away,  Dave,"  Annie 
said ;  "  you  don't  know  what  you  are 
talking  about !  Please  go  back  to  fa 
ther." 

"Annie,"  he  burst  out,  "  look  here :  he 
ain't  worth  it.  I  say,  Annie,  will  you 
take  up  with  me  ?  " 

"I  really  don't  know  what  you  are 
talking  about.  Mr.  Temple  —  if  you 
are  referring  to  him  —  has  not  hurt  my 
feelings  in  the  least.  I  —  I  had  some 
thing  on  my  mind,  and  "  — 

"Oh,  Annie,"  poor  Dave  said,  "what 
I  'm  wanting  to  know  "  —  He  stood 
there  in  his  shirt-sleeves  beside  the  sink, 
186 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

his  voice  trembling,  one  big  red  hand 
opening  and  shutting  the  hot-water 
spigot.  "I'm  just  wanting  to  know  if 
you  '11  marry  me,  Annie.  Say,  now,  will 
you  ? " 

She  shrank  from  him,  a  sort  of  horror 
in  her  face. 

"  You?" 

"  You  ain't  mad  ?  "  he  entreated. 

"It  is  quite  impossible,"  she  answered 
hoarsely  ;  "  quite,  quite !  Never  speak 
to  me  of  such  a  thing  "  —  Her  face  was 
stinging,  her  voice  was  broken,  as  a  wo 
man's  might  be  to  whom  some  insulting 
thing  had  been  said.  "  You  will  go,  if 
you  please,"  she  ended,  her  head  high, 
and  with  a  certain  gesture  that  con 
founded  him. 

"But  look  a-here,"  he  insisted,  follow 
ing  her  as  she  moved  away  from  him  ; 
"Annie,  look  a-here;  that  fellow  ain't 
a-goin'  to  marry  anybody  but  a  rich  lady  ; 
his  kind  ain't  goin'  to  marry  you." 

"  Well,  I  shan't  marry  my  kind,  then  ! 

You  can  just  understand  that,"  she  cried, 

with     a    sudden     almost     coarse    fury. 

"  There 's  no  use  for  you  to  think  of  such 

187 


COUNTING  THE  COST 

a  thing.     Don't  ever  dare  to  speak  to  me 
that  way  again  ! " 


This  is  as  far  as  Annie  Graham  has 
lived  her  story.  She  and  Dave  practi 
cally  summed  the  matter  up  between 
them  :  "  His  kind  will  not  marry  you ; " 
and  "  I  will  not  marry  my  kind." 

The  story  is  unfinished ;  one  waits  to 
see  what  will  happen. 

There  are  three  things  open  to  Annie  : 
She  may  live  out  her  life  in  South  Bend ; 
teaching,  perhaps,  in  the  public  school, 
gradually  refining  the  terrible  little 
house,  rejoicing  Johnny's  heart,  and  never 
interfering,  merely  for  her  own  aesthetic 
necessities,  with  the  unlovely  habits  of 
Johnny's  fifty  years  of  unlovely  living ; 
she  may  learn  to  accept  his  intimates  as 
her  acquaintances,  his  Mrs.  Pugsleys  and 
Dave  Duggans  as  household  friends, 
starving  all  the  while  for  the  companion 
ship  of  her  equals.  Or  — 

She  may  shake  off  these  intolerable 
surroundings  which  make  her  shrink  as 
instinctively  as  an  open  eye  shrinks  from 
188 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

dust ;  she  may  turn  her  back  on  South 
Bend,  and  the  tenement  house,  and  the 
painted  snow-shovel,  and  her  father's 
shirt-sleeves,  and  her  father's  tender 
heart,  and  go  out  into  the  world  to  live 
her  own  strong,  refined,  intellectual  life, 
perhaps  as  a  teacher  in  her  old  college ; 
marrying,  after  a  while,  some  one  who 
has  never  seen  her  father,  and  coming 
into  the  soul-destroying  possession  of 
that  skeleton  in  the  American  closet  — 
the  vulgarity  of  the  preceding  genera 
tion.  Or  — 

She  may,  because  of  sheer  misery  in 
the  struggle  between  the  new  and  the 
old,  and  for  the  dreadful  suffocating  com 
fort  of  it,  fall  back  into  the  pit  whence 
she  was  digged  and  try  to  forget  the  up 
per  air. 

What  is  the  child's  duty  ?  To  live  her 
own  life,  or  to  live  some  one  else's  life  ? 
Is  she  to  accept  success  or  failure,  fulfill 
ment  or  renunciation  ? 

People  differ  as  to  what  constitutes 
success ;  some  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
the  highest  fulfillment  lies  in  renuncia 
tion  ;  and  certainly  there  was  once  a  life 
189 


COUNTING  THE   COST 

that  might  have  been  called  a  failure  be 
cause  it  ended  upon  a  cross  on  Calvary. 

I  suppose  it  all  depends  on  how  you 
look  at  it. 

190 


THE   LAW,  OR  THE   GOSPEL 
I 

rERYBODY  in  Mercer  knew 
Sara  Wharton ;  in  the  first 
place,  she  was  Edward  Whar 
ton' s  daughter  ;  the  Edward  Wharton  of 
the  Wharton  &  Blair  Company,  whose 
great  Rolling  and  Smelting  Mills  darken 
Mercer's  sky  with  vast  folds  of  black 
smoke,  and  give  employment  to  two 
thirds  of  Mercer's  population.  In  the 
second  place,  she  was  a  very  charming 
young  lady,  who  was  too  pretty  to  pass 
unnoticed  when  her  victoria  went  rolling 
along  the  river  road  on  fine  afternoons. 
And  in  the  third  place,  she  was  the  pres 
ident  of  two  girls'  clubs,  and  the  organ 
izer  of  the  Boys'  Alliance,  and  the  Young 
Men's  Literary  Association,  and  the 
founder  of  the  Y.  W.  C.  T.  U.,  and  the 
kindly  autocrat  of  all  Mercer's  rough, 
grimy,  under-fed  young  people.  She 
191 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

was  a  sweet-hearted,  wholesome-minded, 
impulsive,  dear  child  ;  the  kind  of  girl 
who  loved  a  party  just  as  much,  and 
planned  her  pretty  dresses  just  as  anx 
iously,  and  adored  her  father  and  mother 
just  as  unreasonably,  as  though  she  had 
never  heard  of  a  committee,  and  was  in 
different  to  the  Cause  of  Humanity.  All 
Mercer  knew  her,  and  believed  in  her  ; 
and  so  when,  one  gray  November  after 
noon,  she  was  seen  to  go  quietly  up  the 
steps  of  a  certain  house  on  Baker  Street 
—  a  house  which  decent  folk  affected  to 
ignore  when  they  passed  it  by  at  midday, 
but  at  which  they  glanced  curiously  after 
nightfall  —  when  Sara  Wharton  went 
into  this  house,  those  who  chanced  to  see 
her  said  only,  "  Well !  what  won't  that 
girl  do  next  ?  " 

The  woman  who  answered  her  ring 
opened  the  door  scarcely  more  than  a 
crack,  and  peered  out  at  her  sourly. 

"  I  want  to  see  Nellie  Sherman,"  said 
Miss  Wharton. 

"  There 's  no  person  by  that  name 
here,"  the  woman  answered. 

"  Let  me  in,  please,"  Sara  Wharton 
192 


THE   LAW,  OR  THE   GOSPEL 

said.  She  put  her  hand  against  the  door, 
which  yielded  a  little  and  then  stopped  ; 
the  woman  inside  had  braced  her  foot 
against  it. 

"She  ain't  in." 

"  I  will  wait  until  she  comes,  then,"  re 
turned  the  young  lady  pleasantly. 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  're  comin'  here 
lookin'  for  a  girl,"  the  woman  cried  out, 
in  sudden,  shrewish  rage  ;  "  this  is  a  re 
spectable  house  ;  there  's  no  Sherman 
girl  here !  " 

"  Let  me  in  at  once,"  said  Sara  Whar- 
ton,  "  or  I  shall  get  a  policeman,  and 
have  a  warrant  served.  I  know  Nellie 
Sherman  lives  here,  and  I  want  to  see 
her.  You  had  better  let  me  in  without 
further  talk.  I  am  Miss  Wharton." 

"  I  don't  care  if  you  are  Queen  Vic 
toria,"  the  keeper  of  the  house  declared 
angrily ;  "  well,  you  can  come  in,  though 
there  ain't  no  Nellie  Sherman  here; 
there  's  a  Nettie  Sherman,  —  if  she 's  the 
girl  you  're  looking  for." 

"  Tell  her  I  want  to  see  her,  please." 

"  She  's  up  in  her  room.  You  can  go 
up."  Miss  Wharton's  instant's  hesita- 
193 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE   GOSPEL 

tion  made  her  add,  "  There  ain't  nobody 
there." 

The  halls  and  stairs  were  nearly  dark  ; 
one  or  two  frowzy  heads  peered  over  the 
banisters,  and  drew  back  quickly  ;  there 
was  a  loud  guffaw  of  laughter  from  behind 
a  closed  door,  and  all  the  air  was  heavy 
with  the  reek  of  stale  tobacco. 

"  Her  room  's  the  third  floor  back,"  the 
woman  called  up  after  the  visitor,  who 
went  swiftly  over  the  stairs,  intent  upon 
her  errand,  yet  with  a  faint  shudder,  a 
sort  of  physical  shrinking,  that  made  her 
gather  her  cloak  close  about  her,  lest  it 
might  touch  the  wall  or  banisters. 

"I'm  glad  I  told  Thomas  to  wait,"  she 
said  to  herself,  thinking  of  the  brougham 
at  the  door,  with  the  respectable,  long- 
suffering  Thomas  on  the  box.  At  the 
third  floor  back  she  knocked,  and  waited 
for  a  reply  ;  then  she  knocked  again. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  a  muffled  voice  asked  ; 
"  is  that  you,  Mamie  ?  Go  'way  !  I  'm 
busy." 

"  It  is  I ;  Miss  Wharton ;  a  friend  of 
your  aunt's.  Let  me  in,  Nellie."  There 
was  a  breathless  pause,  and  then  a  quick 
194 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

step,  and  a  bolt  was  snapped  back.  A 
slight,  startled-looking  girl  stood  in  the 
doorway.  Sara  entered  with  a  certain 
fine,  regal  step  that  she  had,  that  gave  at 
once  a  sense  of  the  uselessness  of  op 
posing  her. 

"  Shut  the  door,"  she  commanded 
cheerfully,  "  and  let  me  see  you.  Come, 
we  will  sit  down  and  have  a  little  talk. 
Oh,  open  that  window  first ;  there  is 
some  dreadful  perfumery  in  the  room. 
Ah,  that 's  nice ;  fresh  air  is  the  nicest 
sort  of  perfumery  ;  don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

The  girl  stared  at  her  without  an  an 
swer.  She  was  a  delicate-looking  creature, 
rather  pretty,  except  that  just  now  her 
face  was  stained  with  tears,  and  there 
was  a  sullen  look  about  her  little  pale 
lips.  But  she  had  fair  hair  in  a  sort  of 
aureole  around  her  low  forehead,  and 
shading  her  really  beautiful  eyes  ;  and 
she  wore  a  crimson  silk  waist,  —  spotted, 
to  be  sure,  and  ripped  on  the  shoulder, 
but  bringing  out  the  fairness  of  her 
skin,  and  the  blue  veins  on  her  delicate 
temples. 

"  I  'm  sure  I  have  n't  the  pleasure  of 
195 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

your  acquaintance,"  she  said  airily  ;  but 
she  was  trembling. 

"  I  know  your  aunt,  Mrs.  Sherman," 
her  visitor  said  ;  then  there  was  a  mo 
ment's  silence.  Sara  Wharton  looked 
about  the  untidy  room,  — with  its  banjo 
hung  with  ribbons,  its  looking-glass 
rimmed  with  cards  and  tintypes  stuck 
edgewise  within  the  frame ;  its  litter  of 
cigarette  ends,  and  its  half-empty,  un 
corked  bottle  of  beer  on  the  marble- 
topped  centre-table. 

"  Your  aunt  told  me  about  you,  my 
child,"  she  said,  with  a  deep,  kind  look 
full  into  the  girl's  face. 

The  color  rushed  into  Nellie's  pale 
cheeks  ;  but  she  only  said,  with  vast  in 
difference,  "Is  that  so  ?  Well,  she 's  very 
kind,  I  'm  sure." 

"  I  don't  know  that  she  has  always 
been  very  kind,"  Sara  Wharton  an 
swered  thoughtfully.  "  Now  shut  that 
window  behind  you ;  I  don't  want  you 
to  sit  in  a  draft ;  and  the  fresh  air  has 
driven  out  the  perfumery.  Why  do  you 
use  perfumery,  Nellie  ?  Nice  girls  don't." 

The  girl  looked  at  her  blankly. 
,    196 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

"  Yes  ;  your  aunt  told  me  about  you. 
She  told  me  how  she  had  taken  care  of 
you  ever  since  your  mother  died ;  and 
how  she  had  sent  you  to  school,  and 
bought  pretty  dresses  for  you,  and  done 
the  housework  herself  so  that  you 
should  n't  spoil  your  hands  ;  and  how  she 
took  in  washing  so  that  you  might  go 
to  dancing-school.  She  loved  you  very 
much,  Nellie ;  but  I  am  not  sure  that  she 
was  kind.  Perhaps  if  you  had  had  to 
work  you  wouldn't  have  come  to  this 
dreadful  house,  and  brought  shame  and 
disgrace  to  Mrs.  Sherman.  You  Ve  bro 
ken  her  heart,  Nellie." 

The  girl's  face  paled  and  flushed ;  and 
then  quivered  suddenly  into  a  storm  of 
tears. 

"/don't  like  it  here.  But  I  can't  help 
it.  I  lost  my  place  in  the  shop.  I  was 
late,  and  they  discharged  me.  And  I 
was  afraid  to  go  home  and  tell  my  aunt, 
she  jaws  at  me  so.  That  was  four  weeks 
ago.  It  was  the  third  place  I  'd  lost.  So 
I  —  came  here.  I  don't  like  it.  I  was 
just  crying  when  you  came  in ! "  She 
squeezed  her  handkerchief  into  a  damp 
197 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

ball  and  pressed  it  against  her  eyes,  sob- 
bing.  "  The  woman  is  so  cross.  And  — 
and  I  owe  her  for  board." 

Sara  was  silent. 

"  But  there  ain't  anything  I  can  do ; 
I  'd  die  rather  than  go  back  to  my  aunt's. 
She  'd  never  forgive  me.  I  don't  blame 
her.  But  /  don't  like  it  here." 

"Perhaps  your  aunt  will  forgive  you  ? " 
Sara  said  gently.  Nellie  rocked  back 
and  forth,  sobbing. 

"I'm  too  wicked,"  she  recited;  her 
eyes  roved  over  Sara's  dark  dress,  and 
inspected  her  pretty  little  bonnet,  and 
dwelt  on  the  glitter  of  an  amethyst  pin 
at  her  throat.  "  Oh,  dear,  I  wish  I 
had  n't ;  I  wish  I  was  dead,"  she  said 
helplessly. 

Sara  Wharton's  face  lit  with  a  quick 
tenderness.  She  put  her  arm  over  the 
child's  bent  shoulders,  and  drew  the  wet 
cheek  down  against  her  breast.  "  My 
dear,  if  you  are  sorry,  if  you  know  that  it 
is  wicked  and  dreadful,  then  the  worst  is 
over.  Don't  wish  to  die  —  wish  to  live, 
so  that  you  may  be  good.  I  know  you 
can  be  good  ! "  she  ended,  with  a  burst  of 
198 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

courage  in  her  voice,  that  struck  some 
answering  chord  in  the  poor,  half-devel 
oped  little  soul  at  her  side.  Nellie  looked 
up. 

"Oh,  I  will  be  good  —  if  I  can  just  get 
out  of  here  !  I  'm  just  about  sick,  any 
way  ;  I  Ve  got  such  a  pain  under  my  left 
shoulder;  and  I'm  just  tired  of  it  —  and 
Mrs.  Smith  is  so  cross.  But  I  can't  go 
home.  My  aunt  '11  jaw  at  me.  Oh,  I 
can't  ever  go  home !  "  She  whimpered 
a  little,  and  looked  at  her  pretty  ringer 
nails  critically. 

"  I  'm  sure  your  aunt  will  forgive 
you  !  "  Sara  said,  impetuous  and  tender. 
"Let 's  go  and  ask  her  to,  now." 

"  Mrs.  Smith  won't  let  me  go,  I  guess," 
Nellie  sighed;  "I  owe  her  two  weeks 
board." 

"I  will  pay  her." 

"I'll  come  to-morrow,"  the  child  de 
murred. 

"Nellie,  dear,  I  want  you  to  come 
now !  Oh,  Nellie,  won't  you  begin  this 
minute  to  be  good  ?  " 

"  I  'm  not  so  very  bad,"  Nellie  pro 
tested,  "and  I  can't  come  now,  truly.  I 
199 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

haven't  any  sack.  I — sold  it."  The 
tears  welled  up  in  her  soft  eyes  at  the 
remembrance  of  her  poverty. 

"  You  don't  need  a  sack.  You  '11 
come  in  my  carriage,  and  I  '11  wrap  a  rug 
around  you." 

"  My  !  "  said  Nellie,  "  is  your  carriage 
here?  One  of  the  club  girls  told  me 
it  had  satin  cushions.  Is  that  so,  Miss 
Wharton  ? " 

Sara  bit  her  lip.  "  Never  mind  about 
the  cushions.  Oh,  Nellie,  dear,  don't 
think  of  things  like  that !  Only  just  try 
with  all  your  might  to  be  good.  Will 
you,  Nellie?" 

"  Why,  certainly,"  said  Nellie. 

Sara  Wharton  drove  home  with  a  very 
serious  look  on  her  face.  She  had  in 
duced  Nellie  to  leave  that  dreadful  house  ; 
indeed,  the  girl  had  yielded  with  that 
fatally  facile  willingness  to  do  what  she 
was  told  which  should  have  forbade  any 
of  the  joy  that  may  be  felt  over  the  one 
sinner  that  repenteth.  But  in  the  glow 
of  "saving"  the  poor  child,  it  was  not 
easy  for  Sara  Wharton  to  realize  that 

200 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

Nellie's  first  experience  of  sin  had  only 
reached  the  stage  of  the  young  smoker's 
disgust  with  his  first  cigar.  The  young 
lady,  with  her  carriage  and  her  satin 
cushions,  had  come  at  the  right  moment 
—  the  moment  when  the  expediency  of 
morality  had  forced  itself  upon  the  girl's 
little,  flimsy  common-sense,  and  she  was 
willing  to  go  shuddering  back  to  com 
fortable  decency ;  but  as  for  any  spiritual 
perception  of  sin,  and  righteousness,  and 
judgment,  it  did  not  exist. 

Nellie  had  received  her  aunt's  forgive 
ness  as  though  she  were  conferring  a 
favor.  Indeed,  she  sighed  with  some 
impatience  when  Mrs.  Sherman  wept 
over  her ;  and  she  said  again,  fretfully,  in 
response  to  Miss  Wharton's  assertions 
that  now  Nellie  was  going  to  be  good,  — 
"Why  certainly,  yes  ;  "  and  looked  about 
wearily,  as  if  she  wished  the  scene  might 
come  to  an  end. 

"  Nobody  shan't  never  know,  my  dar 
ling,"  Mrs.  Sherman  told  her,  her  voice 
breaking  with  tenderness ;  "  I  '11  say 
you  Ve  been  away,  visiting  friends." 

"A'  right,"  said  Nellie.     And  neither 

201 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

the  aunt  nor  the  niece  understood  Miss 
Wharton's  quick  protest  against  trying 
to  hide  one  sin  by  another. 

Sara,  driving  home,  tired  and  saddened 
by  the  emotions  of  the  afternoon,  ac 
knowledged  to  herself  that  the  easy  re 
pentance  was  made  of  still  less  value  by 
the  easy  forgiveness. 

"  But  some  day  she  will  repent,  really 
and  truly,"  she  told  herself;  but  she 
sighed,  and  dropped  the  window  of  the 
brougham,  leaning  forward  to  get  the 
dash  of  wet,  cold  wind  in  her  face.  It 
seemed  to  her  as  though  she  still  felt  the 
lifeless  air  of  those  horrible  halls  and 
stairways,  and  the  scent  of  musk,  and 
tobacco  smoke,  and  stale  liquor. 

"  The  only  thing  to  do,  the  only  way 
to  save  her  is  to  love  her,"  Sara  Whar- 
ton  said  to  herself,  "  and  I  'm  going  to 
love  her !  " 

When  she  reached  home,  and  came  in 
out  of  the  cold  dusk  into  the  firelit  hall, 
this  divine  intention  of  loving  shone  on 
her  face  with  a  beautiful  solemnity.  Her 
seriousness  was  so  marked  that  her 
mother,  who  was  just  saying  good  even- 

202 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

ing  to  a  departing  caller,  noticed  it  and 
said,  with  some  anxiety  :  — 

"  My  dear,  there  is  nothing  the  matter, 
I  hope  ?  " 

"No,  mother  darling,"  the  girl  reas 
sured  her,  with  a  glance  at  the  tall  fellow 
who  stood  with  his  hat  and  stick  in  his 
hand,  waiting  for  Mrs.  Wharton's  bow. 

"Sara,  my  dear,  this  is  Dr.  Morse. 
My  daughter,  Dr.  Morse." 

"  I  ventured  to  come  and  tell  a  sad 
story  to  your  mother,  Miss  Wharton," 
said  the  young  man,  "  a  dispensary  story. 
I  've  just  come  on  duty  at  the  dispensary ; 
but  Mrs.  Wharton's  kindness  was  so  pro 
verbial,  that  when  I  stumbled  on  a  hard 
case,  I  came  at  once  to  tell  her  about  it." 

"  F  ve  no  doubt  she  was  delighted  to 
hear  of  it,"  Sara  said ;  "  mother  would 
really  be  dreadfully  unhappy  if  every 
body  was  prosperous ;  her  occupation 
would  be  gone." 

"  Why,  Sara !  Sara  !  you  must  n't  say 
such  things,"  Mrs.  Wharton  reproved 
her,  looking  at  her  daughter  over  her 
gold  spectacles,  with  the  horrified  pro 
test  of  a  simple  and  literal  mind. 
203 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

The  other  two  laughed,  feeling  sud 
denly  very  well  acquainted. 

"  So  long  as  she  lives  in  Mercer,  Mrs. 
Wharton's  happiness  is  assured,"  the 
doctor  said ;  and  went  away,  saying  to 
himself,  "  What  a  girl !  I  don't  wonder 
people  rave  about  her  ;  she  's  stunning  ! 
But  I  'm  afraid  she  's  a  professional  phi 
lanthropist." 

"So  that's  the  new  doctor?"  Sara 
said,  pulling  off  her  gloves ;  "  he  has  a 
nice  face,  rather.  Did  you  like  him,  dar 
ling?" 

"Yes,"  her  mother  answered  doubt 
fully,  "only,  Sara,  my  dear,  he  seems 
rather  a  stern  young  man.  I  wanted  to 
give  him  a  check  for  this  poor  woman  he 
came  to  tell  me  about ;  but  he  said  that 
I  must  let  her  clean  windows,  or  some 
thing,  to  earn  it.  And  you  know,  my 
dear  child,  that  would  interfere  with 
James's  work.  I  'd  much  rather  give 
the  check  than  arrange  for  work." 

Sara  kissed  her,  and  cuddled  her,  for 
Mrs.  Wharton  was  a  little,  roly-poly,  com 
fortable  sort  of  woman,  and  told  her  she 
was  behind  the  times. 
204 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

"Nowadays,"  announced  the  young 
lady,  "the  'gave  to  him  that  asketh' 
method  is  hopelessly  unscientific;  bless 
your  dear  old-fashioned  heart ! " 

II 

The  saving  of  Nellie  Sherman  became 
an  intense  and  passionate  purpose  in 
Sara  Wharton's  life.  Day  by  day,  hour 
by  hour,  she  watched  and  fought  and 
prayed.  She  invented  (according  to  the 
most  approved  charity  methods)  work  for 
the  vain  and  shiftless  child  ;  she  had  her 
taught  to  sew ;  she  was  careful  to  pro 
vide  plenty  of  bright  and  wholesome 
amusement  for  her;  by  and  by  Nellie 
felt  yearnings  to  be  a  bookkeeper,  and 
Sara  Wharton  sent  her  to  a  commercial 
school.  "You  can  pay  me  back  when 
you  get  work,"  she  said,  as  cheerfully 
as  though  she  believed  that  Nellie  was 
capable  of  feeling  a  money  obligation. 
She  entered  Nellie's  name  at  her  Girls' 
Club ;  she  took  her  to  concerts,  and  sent 
her  books,  and  planned  and  thought  and 
hoped ;  and  always,  always  prayed.  Fur- 
205 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

thermore,  she  loved  the  girl.  That  is  to 
say,  she  called  it  love  ;  and  perhaps  it 
was,  in  its  way ;  at  least  it  was  that 
greater  love  that  is  content  to  give  and 
not  receive.  Sara  gave  her  very  self 
—  her  power,  her  charm,  her  sweet  and 
generous  enthusiasms — fully  and  freely 
into  the  little,  mean  hands  that  were 
held  out  to  take  all  they  could  get.  "  Be 
cause,"  she  said  to  herself,  again,  "the 
only  way  to  reach  her  is  to  love  her. 
Love  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world ! 
I  Ve  no  doubt  I  would  have  been  just  as 
bad  as  Nellie  if  I  had  n't  had  so  much 
love."  This  thought  made  the  girl  rise, 
and  go  and  push  her  mother's  sewing 
aside,  and  kiss  her,  with  a  little  half 
laughing  break  in  her  voice,  and  her  eyes 
suddenly  wet  with  tears. 

"What  is  it?  What  is  it?"  Mrs. 
Wharton  said  breathlessly,  adjusting  her 
spectacles,  which  the  impetuous  embrace 
had  disturbed  ;  "  is  anything  the  matter, 
Sara?" 

"  No,"  her  daughter  answered,  with  a 
laugh,  winking  away  the  tears,  "I  was 
just  thinking  how  lucky  I  was  to  have 
206 


THE   LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

you  for  a  mother,  you  darling  !  If  I  'd 
had  some  cross  old  mother  I  should  have 
been  —  I  should  have  been  a  fiend  !  I 
have  n't  a  doubt  of  it.  I  'd  have  been 
just  as  wicked  as  poor  Nellie  Sherman." 

"  Nothing  of  the  sort !  "  retorted  Mrs. 
Wharton,  much  ruffled ;  "  please  remem 
ber  what  kind  of  people  your  grand-par 
ents  on  both  sides  were,  and  don't  say 
such  unladylike  things,  Sara.  Dear,  dear, 
I  don't  know  what  girls  are  coming  to  in 
these  days.  When  I  was  young,  young 
ladies  did  n't  know  that  such  improper 
persons  existed  as  your  Nellie  Sherman. 
I  wish  you  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
her." 

Sara,  on  her  knees  beside  the  little, 
rosy,  kindly  lady,  pulled  her  cap  straight, 
and  scolded  her  for  making  her  forefinger 
rough  with  so  much  sewing. 

"  You  are  always  making  petticoats  for 
poor  people,"  she  said  severely,  "  instead 
of  talking  to  me  about  my  winter  clothes. 
I  want  a  new  dinner  dress,  ma'am,  and 
you  've  got  to  buy  it.  I  've  used  up  all 
my  allowance,  and  borrowed  from  father 
on  the  next  quarter ;  so  please  help  the 
207 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

deserving  poor  of  your  own  household. 
Charity  begins  at  home,  let  me  tell  you ! 
Who  is  to  have  this  petticoat  ?  —  while 
your  own  poor  child  is  in  want  of  a  satin 
gown ! " 

"Well,"  Mrs.  Wharton  said,  with  some 
confusion,  "the  fact  is,  Nellie  looks  so 
sickly  I  am  afraid  she  is  not  warmly 
enough  clad  "  — 

Sara  shrieked  with  laughter.  "Con 
sistency,  thy  name  is  Mother,"  she  cried ; 
and  began  to  pour  out  her  plans  for  Nel 
lie,  which  Mrs.  Wharton  amended  several 
times,  objecting  to  Sara's  assertion  that 
Nellie  should  repay  the  money  expended 
for  her  tuition  at  the  commercial  col 
lege. 

"The  poor  thing  will  have  so  little 
money,  anyhow,"  she  entreated.  But 
Sara  held  to  her  theory. 

"  We  '11  make  it  up  in  other  ways,  — 
petticoats,  and  things,  but  she  must  feel 
it  a  loan,"  she  said. 

However,     Miss    Wharton's     theories 

were  far  too  fine  for  the  material  with 

which    she   worked.      When   the   three 

terms  at  the    commercial   college  were 

208 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE   GOSPEL 

over,  Nellie  was  languidly  grateful,  but 
she  doubted  whether  she  should  like 
bookkeeping ;  she  was,  however,  willing 
to  "  give  it  a  trial ; "  so  Sara  found  a  place 
in  a  shop  for  her,  and,  as  the  proprietor 
(another  friend  and  dependent)  could  not 
pay  the  full  wages,  made  up  the  sum  her 
self.  But  it  never  occurred  to  Nellie  to 
begin  to  pay  her  debt ;  and  Sara,  fearful 
of  antagonizing  the  child,  cast  her  theory 
to  the  winds,  and  did  not  suggest  it. 

So  the  first  year  passed.  The  anx 
ious,  courageous,  artificial  fight  never 
flagged ;  and  Nellie,  for  twelve  months, 
was  "straight."  There  had  been  great 
expenditure  of  time  and  strength  and 
money  to  save  the  little  creature  ;  and 
in  a  purely  negative  way  the  effort  had 
been  successful.  Nellie  was  "straight." 

Yet  Sara  Wharton  was  sometimes 
dreadfully  discouraged ;  she  could  not 
see  a  single  large  or  noble  trait  in  the 
girl,  although  it  was  her  sweet  and  lov 
ing  theory  to  believe  in  what  she  did 
not  see. 

"  Goodness  is  there,  somewhere !  "  she 
used  to  say  to  herself,  with  a  beautiful 
209 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

and  courageous  belief  which  was  part  of 
her  own  character ;  and  then  she  fell 
back  on  what  she  had  called  "  the  great 
est  thing  in  the  world  : "  "  Goodness  is 
there,  and  I  Ve  got  to  love  it  out ! " 
She  took  Nellie's  latent  goodness  for 
granted,  especially  in  her  effort  to  over 
come  the  child's  enveloping  selfishness. 
She  was  constantly  trying  to  make  her 
realize  the  happiness  of  sacrifice. 

"Nellie,"  she  said  once,  "now  that 
you  Ve  got  your  place  as  bookkeeper, 
and  are  earning  some  money,  of  course 
you  want  to  pay  me ;  but  I  think,  even 
before  that,  you  must  want  to  pay  for 
your  board  at  your  aunt's.  She  has 
been  so  good  to  you,  you  know ;  and 
I  'm  sure  you  '11  be  glad  to  help  her  along 
a  little  ? " 

"  Oh,  certainly !  "  Nellie  replied,  with 
a  blank  look. 

"  How  much  do  you  think  you  can 
pay  ? "  Sara  suggested  cheerfully. 

"Well,  just  now,"  Nellie  demurred,  "I 
really  have  to  have  a  new  dress  ;  per 
haps,  later,  I  can  give  her  a  little  some 
thing." 

210 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

Sara  looked  at  her  wistfully.  "  Don't 
you  want  to,  Nellie  ?  I  should  think  your 
very  first  thought  would  be  to  do  some 
thing  for  her.  Just  think  what  she  has 
done  for  you  !  " 

"Of  course,  I  mean  to,"  Nellie  said, 
tossing  her  head,  "  but  I  Ve  got  to  have 
a  dress  —  and  things." 

"  If  only,"  Sara  reflected,  "  she  could 
once  understand  how  awfully  nice  it  is  to 
give  ! "  and  then  she  planned  that  every 
Saturday  Nellie  might  come  to  the  green 
house  and  get  some  roses  from  the  gar 
dener,  —  "  and  take  them  to  the  hospital. 
It  is  delightful  to  do  that ! "  she  said. 
And  Nellie  smiled  faintly,  and  said,  "  Oh, 
certainly ; "  but  only  came  once  for  the 
flowers. 

Nevertheless,  Nellie  Sherman  had  been 
"rescued."  Almost  the  same  sort  of 
rescue  would  have  been  achieved  if  Sara 
had  fastened  her  into  a  strait-jacket  and 
locked  her  into  a  room.  But  with  Miss 
Wharton  on  one  side,  and  her  aunt  on 
the  other,  day  and  night,  the  strange, 
boneless,  unmoral  little  nature  "kept 
straight ; "  and  in  a  glimmering  way  the 

211 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

girl  even  began  to  see  that  there  were 
certain  views  which  were  thought  admir 
able,  and  once  in  a  while  she  tried  them 
on,  as  it  were,  and  regarded  herself  in  the 
mirror  of  Miss  Wharton's  warm  and  joy 
ous  approbation. 

"  I  was  so  sorry  not  to  see  you  at  the 
club  last  night,  Nellie,"  Sara  said  to  her 
one  day,  dropping  in  to  buy  a  pair  of 
gloves  at  the  shop  where  Nellie  kept  the 
books. 

"My  aunt  wasn't  well,"  said  Nellie, 
"  and  I  stayed  at  home  to  take  care  of 
her."  Such  a  light  came  into  Sara  Whar 
ton's  sweet  face,  such  tenderness  and  tri 
umph  and  quick  hope,  that  Nellie  looked 
at  her  curiously. 

"That  was  right,  Nellie,  dear,"  she 
said ;  "  I  'm  so  glad  you  did  it.  I  'm  so 
glad,"  she  repeated,  and  went  away,  her 
eyes  misty  and  her  heart  lifted  up.  She 
could  not  help  going  in  to  see  Mrs.  Sher 
man,  making  the  excuse  of  bringing  her 
some  fruit  because  she  was  ill,  but  really 
to  share  her  exultation. 

"Sick?"  said  Mrs.  Sherman,  "why, 
no,  ma'am,  I  'm  not  sick,  no  more  than  I 

212 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

always  am  with  worry  about  that  there 
Nellie.  She  did  n't  come  home  from  the 
club  last  night  until  after  eleven,  and  I 
was  scared  to  death  for  fear  she  'd  gone 
off  with  them  Caligan  girls  —  they  're  fast 
girls,  that 's  what  they  are ;  and  she 's 
struck  up  a  great  friendship  with  'em. 
My,  she  '11  worry  me  into  my  grave, 
Nellie  will.  But  she  said  you  'd  kept  her 
late  to  help  you  putting  away  the  club 
books,  —  and  of  course  that  was  all 
right." 

Ill 

"You  owe  something  to  your  family, 
my  child,"  Mrs.  Wharton  said  one  day ; 
"  you  make  us  all  very  anxious  and  wor 
ried  by  overworking  so ;  it 's  your  duty 
to  take  a  little  rest." 

"  Mother,  darling,"  Sara  began  to  pro 
test,  "I  really  can't  go  away  now;  the 
Girls'  Club  and  "  — 

"  You  need  n't  begin  the  list,  my  dear," 

her  mother  interrupted  —  "I  know  them 

all.     Dear,  dear !     Sara,  when  I  was  a 

girl,  young  women  owed  some  duties  to 

213 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

their  parents,  as  well  as  to  all  the  shiftless, 
worthless,  improper  people  in  the  world." 

"  I  trust  I  'm  not  a  Borrioboola-Gha 
person,"  murmured  Sara. 

"Don't  be  foolish,  my  child,"  Mrs. 
Wharton  said,  "  and  use  long  words  when 
your  poor  old  mother  don't  know  what 
they  mean  "  — 

"  You  darling !  "  said  Sara,  and  hugged 
her  so  tightly  that  Mrs.  Wharton  remon 
strated. 

"  It  would  be  a  great  deal  more  to  the 
point  if,  instead  of  kissing  me,  you  would 
be  an  obedient  child.  You  worry  me  al 
most  to  death,  working  so  hard.  I  want 
you  to  come  to  Florida.  I  asked  Dr. 
Morse  if  he  did  n't  think  you  were  doing 
too  much,  and  he  said  you  took  a  great 
deal  of  unnecessary  trouble ;  so  you  see 
he  agrees  with  me." 

"  Mother,  dear,  how  you  adore  doctors ! 
Dr.  Morse  does  n't  know  what  he 's  talk 
ing  about.  But  you  might  tell  me  what 
else  he  said  ? " 

"  Oh,  some  nonsense  about  —  about 
your  being  of  so  much  value  to  Mercer," 
Mrs.  Wharton  admitted,  with  evident 
214 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

fear  that  one  statement  might  lessen  the 
effect  of  the  other. 

But  whether  it  was  Dr.  Morse's  under 
standing  of  the  value  of  her  work,  or 
whether  it  was  her  mother's  entreaties, 
Sara  at  last  agreed  to  go  away  for  a  little 
while,  though  it  was  hard  work  to  get 
things  in  running  order  for  a  three  months' 
absence  of  their  head.  Nellie  was  her 
greatest  anxiety ;  three  months  without 
oversight  and  guidance  —  who  could  tell 
what  might  happen !  So  Sara  made 
many  plans ;  the  girl  was  to  be  guarded 
on  this  side  and  on  that :  she  was  to  have 
steady  work,  and  she  was  to  have  fre 
quent  amusement ;  pleasure  and  profit 
were  all  arranged.  And  before  she  went, 
Sara  had  a  little  talk  with  her.  She  had 
sent  for  the  girl,  who  came  up  into  her 
bedroom,  where,  just  before  dinner,  Miss 
Wharton  was  sitting  in  the  firelight. 
The  pretty  room  was  full  of  dusky  shad 
ows  ;  its  faint  scent  of  roses,  its  deep, 
soft  chairs,  the  shimmer  of  silver  on  the 
toilet-table,  all  its  delicate  luxury,  was 
evident  enough  to  Nellie.  The  sullen 
upper  lip  swelled  out  as  she  looked  en- 
215 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

viously  about  her.  She  liked  the  touch 
of  the  silk  cushions,  the  feeling  of  the 
soft  white  rug  under  her  feet ;  the  color 
of  Miss  Wharton's  crimson  tea-gown  fed 
her  eyes  with  delight.  She  hardly  heard 
what  the  young  lady  was  saying. 

"  Nellie,  dear,  I  want  you  to  try  your 
very  best  to  be  good  while  I  'm  away." 

"Oh,  certainly,"  said  Nellie,  with  a 
sigh. 

Sara  clasped  her  hands  together  over 
her  knees,  and  held  her  lip  between  her 
teeth,  drawing  in  her  breath ;  Nellie 
watched  her  rings  wink  and  flash  in  the 
firelight. 

"  Nellie  "  (Sara  was  saying  to  herself, 
"  Oh,  I  hope  I  will  say  what  is  wise.  I 
hope  I  can  touch  her ! "),  "  Nellie,  you 
know  how  I  have  always  believed  in  you, 
and  hoped  for  you,  and  loved  you ;  and 
just  because  I  have,  and  because  I  am 
truly,  truly  your  friend,  I  want  to  ask 
you  to  do  two  things  for  me  while  I  'm 
away :  first,  promise  me  not  to  tell  an 
other  lie  ;  oh,  Nellie,  you  don't  know  how 
unhappy  you  made  me  when  you  told  me 
that  lie  about  the  club." 
216 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

Nellie  dropped  her  head  upon  her 
breast,  and  made  no  answer. 

"And  then,"  Sara  went  on,  "I  want 
you  to  try  not  to  be  so  selfish.  I  am  so 
grieved  to  have  you  indifferent  to  Mrs. 
Sherman's  kindness  to  you.  She  told 
me  that  you  had  only  given  her  one  dol 
lar  and  seventy-five  cents  since  you  went 
to  work.  And  don't  you  see,  you  have 
been  receiving  everything  she  could  give 
you,  of  love  and  care,  and  yet  you  have 
given  her  nothing!  You  haven't  even 
been  kind  to  her,  Nellie." 

"Ok!"  said  Nellie,  "well,  I  wish  I 
was  dead.  Everybody  's  always  finding 
fault.  I  'm  sure  there 's  lots  of  girls 
worse  than  me.  But  I  'm  always  being 
picked  at.  I  wish  I  was  dead." 

Sara  was  nervous  and  overstrained ; 
besides,  she  was  conscious  of  a  sort  of 
physical  disgust  at  this  poor,  repulsive 
little  being ;  her  self-reproach  brought 
the  tears  to  her  eyes.  "  I  did  n't  mean 
to  be  hard  on  you,  Nellie,"  she  said, 
"only  I  want  you  to  try." 

"  I  always  try,"  said  Nellie. 

"  And,"  Sara's  brave  young  voice  went 


THE   LAW,   OR   THE  GOSPEL 

on,  "I  do  want  you  to  feel  that — that 
Christ  cares ;  that  God  cares,  Nellie,  that 
you  shall  be  a  good,  true,  dear  girl.  Will 
you  just  think  of  that,  Nellie  ? " 

"  Why,  of  course,"  Nellie  answered  re 
sentfully,  wiping  her  eyes.  "  I  do  always. 
My  aunt  makes  me  go  to  church  every 
Sunday.  Miss  Sara,  do  you  think  you 
have  any  pieces  of  velvet  in  your  rag 
bag?" 

Sara  started.  "Rag-bag?"  she  re 
peated  vaguely,  "velvet  ? " 

"  I  thought  I  could  trim  my  hat  over," 
Nellie  explained.  "  You  Ve  got  so  many 
things,"  she  ended  sullenly. 

Sara  was  silent  for  a  few  minutes, 
reasoning  with  herself.  After  all,  Nellie 
was  young ;  it  was  natural  for  her  to  like 
pretty  things. 

"  Yes,  I  can  give  you  some  velvet,  I 
think,"  she  said  cheerfully ;  "  and,  Nel 
lie,  I  have  a  plan  for  you  ;  what  are  you 
going  to  give  your  aunt  for  a  Christmas 
gift  ? " 

Nellie  looked  up  blankly. 

"  I  know  you  '11  want  to  give  her  some 
thing,"  Sara  went  on,  "and  I  was  think- 
218 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE   GOSPEL 

ing  of  a  nice  chair.  What  do  you  think 
of  that  ? " 

"  A  chair  !  "  repeated  Nellie  in  astonish 
ment.  "Why,  I  wouldn't  buy  a  chair 
for  myself !  " 

Sara  sighed.  "  But  you  would  like  the 
fun  of  buying  one  for  somebody  else, 
would  n't  you  ?  " 

"Well,  I  ain't  got  any  money,"  the 
girl  said  uneasily  ;  and  then  Miss  Whar- 
ton  unfolded  her  plan,  which  was  that 
she  should  give  Nellie  five  dollars,  and 
Nellie  would  add  what  she  could,  and  a 
present  should  be  purchased. 

"Add  something,  if  it's  only  a  dol 
lar,"  Sara  said  pleadingly;  "a  good, 
comfortable  chair  can  be  bought  for  six 
dollars." 

"A'  right;  I  don't  mind,"  Nellie 
agreed,  in  a  wearied  way.  She  did  not 
understand  all  this  talk ;  she  saw  no 
reason  in  Miss  Sara's  giving  Mrs.  Sher 
man  a  chair,  and  saying  it  was  Nellie's 
gift ;  still,  she  did  n't  mind. 

"  You  '11  like  to  do  that,  won't  you, 
Nellie  ?  "  Sara  said  anxiously. 

"  Oh,  certainly,"  said  Nellie,  and  then 
219 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

she  rose,  for  Miss  Wharton  was  silent, 
and  that  seemed  a  sign  of  dismissal. 

Sara  rose,  too,  and  stood  looking  at 
her  visitor  for  a  moment ;  then,  suddenly 
she  put  her  arm  around  the  little  thin 
shoulders,  and  drew  the  girl  to  her,  and 
kissed  her.  "  Oh,  Nellie,"  she  said,  her 
voice  passionate  and  trembling,  —  "  Oh, 
Nellie,  dear!  I  —  I  wish  I  knew  what 
to  say,  to  show  you  —  to  make  you  feel" 

—  her  voice  broke ;   Nellie  was   greatly 
embarrassed  ; —  "  but  just  believe  /  love 
you,  won't  you  ?  and  be  good  !  " 

"Why,"  said  Nellie,  with  a  sigh  of  fa 
tigue  and  reproach,  "  certainly !  "  Then 
she  added,  "  Well,  good-by ;  hope  you  '11 
have  a  delightful  time,  I  'm  sure,"  and 
closed  Miss  Sara's  door,  with  a  sense  of 
relief  that  was  like  the  lifting  of  some 
harassing  weight.  She  came  slowly 
downstairs,  pulling  on  her  soiled  gloves, 
and  walking  with  a  mincing  step.  Es 
caped  from  Miss  Wharton's  room,  she 
felt  as  if  all  the  luxury  of  this  great  house 

—  the  color,  the  lights,  the  soft  carpet 
under  her  feet,  the  sparkle  of  the  fire 
light  in  the  hall  below  —  was  hers,  and 

220 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

so  she  assumed  the  gait  and  the  manner 
which  she  conceived  to  belong  to  an 
owner.  The  inside-man  was  just  light 
ing  a  lamp  under  a  big  rose -colored 
shade,  and  Nellie  threw  up  her  head  with 
a  haughty  look,  and  drew  down  the  cor 
ners  of  her  mouth,  sweeping  past  him 
toward  the  door.  James,  however,  smiled 
with  great  politeness. 

"  Oh,  g'd  evening,  Miss  Sherman,"  he 
said.  "  My  !  it  does  seem  to  get  dark 
early  these  days,  does  n't  it  ?  " 

Nellie's  lofty  coldness  melted  instantly. 
She  simpered  and  said,  "  Is  that  so  ?  " 

"  It 's  quite  late  for  a  young  lady  to  be 
out  alone,"  James  remarked  with  grave 
solicitude. 

"  Oh,  that 's  a'  right,"  Nellie  protested. 

She  was  smiling,  and  holding  her  head 
coquettishly,  and  looking  up  at  him  with 
great  archness.  She  dropped  her  hand 
kerchief  as  she  reached  the  front  door 
and  James  picked  it  up,  and  handed  it  to 
her  with  an  elaborate  bow.  He  caught 
her  ringers  in  his  own  as  he  did  so,  and 
they  both  giggled,  and  Nellie  said,  "  Now, 
you  stop  that ! " 

221 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

They  lowered  their  voices  with  an  ap 
prehensive  look  towards  the  staircase ; 
James  opened  the  door  and  stepped  out 
on  the  porch  with  her.  "Well,  you 
ought  n't  to  be  severe,  Miss  Sherman ; 
it 's  such  a  little  hand,  a  gentleman  can't 
help  it ;  Miss  Sara's  is  twice  as  big." 

"Is  that  so?"  said  Nellie;  and  then 
they  both  looked  up  at  the  sky,  and 
James  observed  that  the  weather  was 
threatening,  and  it  certainly  was  too  dark 
for  a  young  lady,  a  beautiful  young  lady, 
to  be  out  alone. 

"  Oh,  that 's  a'  right,"  Nellie  reassured 
him  politely. 

James  in  an  absent-minded  way  put 
his  arm  round  her,  and  said  he  thought 
ladies  ought  always  to  have  gentlemen 
escorts. 

"Is  that  so?"  Nellie  answered,  sim 
pering;  and,  with  the  same  apparent 
absence  of  mind,  sidling  closer  to  him, 
which  induced  his  easy  caresses ;  "  well, 
I  must  be  going  along,"  she  announced, 
giggling. 

"Well,  good-by,  Miss  Sherman,"  said 
the  chivalrous  James,  and  gave  her  a 

222 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

hearty  kiss,  which  made  Nellie  slap  at 
him  with  one  hand,  and  say,  "  Now  you 
stop  that !  "  and  go  off,  still  giggling, 
into  the  darkness. 

Sara  Wharton,  upstairs  by  her  fire,  had 
dropped  her  face  in  her  hands,  and  was 
saying  to  herself,  "I  must  trust  her 
more,  and  believe  in  her  more !  Oh,  I 
am  sure  she  tries  —  poor  little  Nellie." 

And  certainly  poor  Nellie  was  not  con 
scious  of  any  lack  of  trying,  so  far  as  the 
episode  with  James  was  concerned.  To 
her,  as  well  as  to  him,  it  was  very  harm 
less,  that  kiss  in  the  porch.  And  really 
to  call  such  a  thing  "  sin  "  is  to  lift  it  to 
a  level  where  it  does  not  belong. 

But  probably  Sara  Wharton  was  con 
stitutionally  unable  to  understand  that. 

The  people  who  try  to  make  silk  purses 
out  of  inadequate  materials  rarely  can 
understand  it. 

IV 

The  Whartons  did  not  get  back  until 
April,    and   the   improvement  in   Sara's 
color,  and  the   clear,  glad   look   in   her 
223 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

eyes,  showed  how  much  she  had  needed 
the  change.  She  was  all  ready  for  her 
brave,  happy  work  for  other  people. 
Her  very  first  visit  was  to  Nellie's  aunt. 
When  she  climbed  up  to  the  top  tene 
ment,  stopping  to  open  a  window  on  a 
landing  half  way  up,  so  that  the  sweet 
spring  air  might  turn  out  the  odors  of 
the  hall-sink,  and  of  the  dirt  in  the  cor 
ners  and  on  the  stairs,  she  came  into 
Mrs.  Sherman's  room  a  little  breathless, 
but  with  a  soft  rose-color  on  her  cheek. 

"Well!"  she  called  out  cheerfully, 
"  here  I  am  again,  Mrs.  Sherman  ;  how 
are  you ;  and  how  is  Nellie  ? "  and  then 
she  discovered  Nellie  sitting  close  to  the 
stove,  on  which  was  a  tin  boiler  full  of 
steaming  soapy  linen,  which  Mrs.  Sher 
man,  bare  armed  and  draggled,  pushed 
down  once  in  a  while  with  a  broom- 
handle. 

" There !"  said  Mrs.  Sherman,  "well! 
my  sakes,  Miss  Wharton,  it  do  do  me 
good  to  see  you.  Look  at  that  there 

girl!" 

Nellie  sunk  her  head  on  her  breast  and 
began  to  cry.     Sara  was   instantly  seri- 
224 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE   GOSPEL 

ous,  "Is  anything  wrong?"  she  said 
gravely. 

"  Wrong ! "  cried  Mrs.  Sherman 
shrilly.  "  Well,  I  guess  !  I  told  her  I  'd 
keep  her  till  you  come  home,  though 
she 's  a  shame  to  any  decent  woman. 
My !  what  I  Ve  put  up  with  for  that 
there  child  ! "  She  put  her  apron  over 
her  head,  sobbing  and  vociferating  :  "  I 
told  her  I  'd  tell  you.  I  ain't  let  her  out 
of  that  door  since.  I  '11  keep  her  straight 
now,  as  long  as  /  live  "  — 

Nellie,  her  face  drawn  and  pale,  sat 
plucking  at  the  fringe  of  the  shawl  about 
her  shoulders,  her  sullen  lips  compressed, 
her  eyes  cast  resolutely  down. 

"  Nellie  ? "  Sara  said.  There  was  no 
answer. 

"What  has  happened,  Nellie  ?  " 

Silence. 

"Tell  me;  I  won't  be  hard  on  you, 
Nellie.  Have  you  —  gone  wrong  again  ? " 

Nellie  crossed  her  feet  and  made  no 
reply. 

In  despair  Sara  turned  again  to  Mrs. 
Sherman,  who,  with  tears,  declaring  first 
that  Nellie  should  leave  her  house  that 
225 


THE   LAW,   OR   THE   GOSPEL 

night,  and  then  that  she  would  never  let 
her  out  ot  her  sight,  told  the  shameful 
fact  of  another  fall ;  —  another  reforma 
tion. 

"  She  's  sick,  that 's  what 's  the  matter  ; 
that 's  all  her  reformin'  amounts  to,"  the 
aunt  said  ;  "  she  was  bleedin'  from  her 
lungs,  so  she  come  home.  She  was  gone 
a  week.  It  was  two  weeks  last  Thursday 
she  come  back.  Well,  I  thought  she  was 
dyin'.  I  was  up  with  her  three  nights. 
I  sent  for  that  there  doctor  at  the  dispen 
sary.  He  give  her  some  stuff.  That 's  it 
in  the  bottle  on  the  mantel.  Well,  I 
did  n't  let  on  to  him  how  she  'd  been 
carryin'  on  !  Shame  on  her !  I  'm  done 
with  her.  She  can  go  out  to  the  gutter. 
That 's  where  she  belongs  "  — 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  Sherman,"  Sara  protested, 
her  color  coming  and  going.  "  Nellie, 
how  could  you !  oh,  Nellie !  "  She  looked 
over  at  the  girl  with  a  sort  of  passionate 
disappointment  and  pity,  yet  with  that 
physical  shrinking  which  the  good  woman 
feels  in  the  presence  of  the  bad  woman. 
With  illness  Nellie's  vanity  had  ebbed; 
she  was  untidy,  her  hands  were  dirty ; 
226 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

she  had  not  frizzed  her  hair  for  days, 
and  it  hung  about  her  dull  face  in  lifeless 
strands. 

"Well,"  Mrs.  Sherman  burst  out, 
"  there !  She 's  broke  my  heart.  Nellie, 
it 's  time  for  your  medicine.  She  ain't 
got  no  appetite,  Miss  Wharton.  I  don't 
know  what  I  shall  do  !  "  The  woman's 
worn  face  quivered  with  tears.  Nellie 
got  up  and  took  her  medicine  ;  she 
glanced  at  the  hem  of  Miss  Wharton's 
skirt,  but  would  not  lift  her  eyes  any 
higher.  The  clothes  on  the  stove  boiled, 
and  the  suds  splashed  over  and  sizzled 
on  the  hot  iron.  Mrs.  Sherman,  talking 
and  crying,  rammed  them  down  with  the 
clothes-stick. 

"  I  could  n't  believe  it  at  first.  She  'd 
kep'  straight  for  more  'an  a  year  an'  a 
half.  But  she  got  to  goin'  with  a  lot  o' 
them  fast  girls,  and  she  spent  every  cent 
she  had  on  her  back  "  — 

Sara  looked  around  suddenly.  "  Did 
she  give  you  a  present  of  a  chair  at 
Christmas  ?  " 

"  A  chair  ?     No ;  she  never  gave  me 
nothing.     Not   a  thing.     You   told  her 
227 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

she  'd  got  to  pay  me  board.  I  'd  'a'  been 
satisfied  with  that,  and  not  'a'  wanted  no 
presents  of  chairs.  Well,  I  took  her  out 
of  her  dyin'  mother's  arms,  and  I  Ve 
lived  to  see  the  day  I  wished  she  'd  a-died 
then,  with  my  poor,  blessed  sister.  She 
made  a  misstep,  I  will  say ;  and  the  man 
made  off  and  left  her.  But  she  was  ex- 
pectin'  to  marry  him.  It  was  different 
from  this  one.  I  've  been  a  respectable 
woman  all  my  life,  and  I  can't  stand  the 
shame  of  this,  —  the  neighbors  '11  know," 
she  rambled  on,  crying  and  jabbing  at 
the  steaming  clothes,  and  looking  with 
furtive,  dumb  love  at  the  little,  sick,  mean 
face  on  the  other  side  of  the  stove. 

As  for  Sara  Wharton,  she  went  home 
heart-sick,  but  gathering  up  her  courage 
and  her  faith  for  further  effort ;  this  time 
to  save  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was,  plainly, 
to  see  the  doctor  at  the  dispensary,  who 
had  already  examined  Nellie. 

"  I  '11  have  to  tell  him  the  truth  about 
her,"  Sara  thought,  frowning.  But  it 
never  occurred  to  her  to  shirk  this. 

"  Yes,  I  remember  the  case,  I  think," 
228 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

said  Dr.  Morse ;  "  incipient  phthisis,  I 
believe.  Just  let  me  look  it  up  ;  yes,  that 
was  it ;  anaemia,  also  ;  I  gave  her  a  tonic." 

"  Phthisis  ? "  Sara  repeated,  her  color 
paling.  "  Oh,  Dr.  Morse,  does  n't  that 
mean  —  consumption  ?  " 

"  Not  yet,"  he  answered,  with  all  the 
cheerfulness  of  scientific  indifference. 
"  It  will  doubtless  develop  into  consump 
tion." 

"  But  that  means  she  will  die  ?  "  Sara 
said,  her  dark  eyes  full  of  fear.  "  Oh,  is 
it  as  bad  as  that?"  Her  lip  trembled. 
The  young  man  looked  at  her  with  at 
tention. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  told  you  so  abruptly  ;  I 
did  not  realize  that  the  young  woman 
was  anything  to  you,  personally ;  and  I 
assure  you  the  case  is  not  hopeless." 

"  Is  there  any  hope  ?  Oh,  Dr.  Morse, 
it  is  so  awful  to  think  of  her  dying  now  ! 
What  must  be  done  ?  How  uneven 
things  are  !  There  was  I,  a  strong,  well 
woman,  down  in  Florida,  and  this  poor 
girl"  — 

"  There  is  perhaps  some  difference  in 
the  value  of  the  two  lives,"  the  doctor 
229 


THE   LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

objected,  smiling.  Sara  brushed  this 
aside  as  unworthy  of  an  answer. 

"  What  can  we  do  ? " 

"  Well,  I  suppose  if  she  could  go  away 
into  the  country,  and  live  a  quiet,  regular 
life,  with  plenty  of  milk  to  drink,  and 
plenty  of  fresh  air  and  proper  exercise, 
she  would  at  least  be  greatly  benefited. 
Possibly  cured.  There  are  no  marked 
lesions,  I  think,  in  the  lung." 

Sara  listened  with  frowning  intent- 
ness  ;  then  she  drew  a  long  breath  of 
relief.  "  I  am  so  thankful  that  it  is  not 
hopeless.  But  I  think  that  —  that  in 
prescribing  for  her,  I  mean  planning  for 
her,  you  ought  to  know  —  all  there  is  to 
know,  about  her." 

"Yes,  that  is  advisable,"  the  doctor 
agreed  easily.  The  charming  color  of  her 
cheek,  the  bunch  of  violets  on  her  shoul 
der,  her  beautiful,  troubled  brown  eyes, 
were  not  lost  upon  this  young  man.  "  I 
thought  her  a  vain  little  thing,"  he  went 
on,  "  and  rather  brutal  to  the  good  woman 
who  was  taking  care  of  her.  But  illness 
makes  us  all  selfish." 

"  I  am  afraid  she  is  vain,  poor  child," 
230 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

Sara  said,  "  and  selfish,  too,  rather.  But 
the  worst  of  it  is,  she  has  —  she  has  not 
been  good,  Dr.  Morse." 

"  Ah  !  "  said  the  young  man. 

"I  did  hope  she  had  reformed,  but 
while  I  was  away  —  it  happened  again." 

"I  see.     I  see." 

"  Of  course,  in  sending  her  away  that 
has  to  be  considered.  She  must  be 
among  people  who  will  do  her  good." 

"And  to  whom  she  will  not  do  harm." 

Sara  looked  a  little  startled.  "Of 
course ;  but  I  had  not  thought  of  that." 

"It  seems  to  me  that  is  very  impor 
tant,"  he  said,  smiling.  "  Speaking  of 
sending  people  away,  I  wish  I  might  tell 
you  of  another  case  which  needs  the 
country ;  or  are  your  hands  too  full  to 
consider  any  one  else  ?  " 

"Alas,  it  is  my  purse  which  is  not 
full,"  she  said  ruefully ;  "  but  is  it  very 
bad  ? " 

"It  is  a  poor  soul,  a  hard-working, 
honest  little  creature,  who  has  an  old 
mother  and  an  imbecile  brother  to  sup 
port  ;  and  she 's  nearly  at  an  end  of  her 
strength.  She  needs  to  be  braced  up." 
231 


THE   LAW,   OR   THE   GOSPEL 

"I  wish  I  could  send  her  away  too," 
Sara  said  pitifully ;  "  but  I  've  begged 
and  begged  for  my  cases  until,  positively, 
I  have  n't  the  face  to  ask  for  any  more 
money.  My  friends  fly  when  they  see 
me  approaching,  for  fear  I  'm  going  to 
say  'give,  give ! '  "  She  laughed  a  little, 
and  the  doctor  looked  at  her  with  critical 
amusement. 

"But  of  the  two,  you'd  give  the  — 
you'd  give  Nellie  Sherman  the  chance 
for  health  ? " 

"Why,  it's  only  'bracing  up'  that 
your  poor  woman  needs,"  Sara  said,  with 
a  surprised  look,  "  and  you  say  Nellie  will 
die  if  she  does  n't  go  away  ? " 

"  Perhaps  that  would  be  the  best  thing 
that  could  happen." 

"  Dr.  Morse  !  Would  you  have  me  let 
Nellie  Sherman  die,  that  three  people 
should  be  made  comfortable  ? " 

"  I  would,  indeed,"  he  said,  with  a 
whimsical  smile. 

She  looked  at  him  in  silent  dismay, 
and  he  thought  she  shrank  a  little. 

"  My  dear  Miss  Wharton,"  he  said 
quickly,  "just  look  at  the  situation: 
232 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

your  poor  Nellie  is  a  moral  leper ;  she  is 
a  contagion  ;  she 's  had  her  opportunity 
to  get  well  (I  speak  spiritually)  ;  she  has 
had  a  year  and  a  half  of  the  most  patient 
and  earnest  effort  expended  upon  her; 
but  she  has  n't  profited  by  it,  and  the 
probability  is  she  is  incurable.  On  the 
other  hand,  here  is  a  woman  who  is  a 
centre  and  source  of  moral  health.  Each 
needs  physical  restoration  :  one  for  her 
life,  the  other  for  her  usefulness,  —  and, 
later,  no  doubt,  her  life,  too.  To  which 
shall  the  chance  be  given  ? " 

"To  the  one  who  might  die!"  Sara 
said  impetuously. 

She  got  up  to  go,  a  sparkle  of  indig 
nation  in  her  eyes ;  the  young  man  rose, 
too,  and  stood  leaning  back  against  his 
office  table,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and 
a  good-natured  smile  on  his  lean,  strong 
face.  "  I  don't  see,"  his  visitor  went  on, 
"  how  you  dare  to  say  any  soul  is  incur 
ably  bad"— 

"  I  only  said  the  probability  was  that 

your  Nellie  was  incurable ;  and,  after  all, 

if  you   have  only  a  certain  amount  of 

medicine,  will  you  give  it  to  the  mori- 

233 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

bund  or  the  person  who  is  just  coming 
down  with  an  illness  ? " 

"  I  don't  think  the  illustration  is  good," 
Sara  answered  loftily ;  "  we  are  speaking 
of  souls.  And  we  have  no  right  to  say 
we  know  the  limit "  —  her  voice  fell  a 
little  —  "  of  God's  power." 

Dr.  Morse  looked  as  though  he  were 
about  to  speak,  but  apparently  thought 
better  of  it. 

"  I  'm  very  sorry  for  your  poor  woman," 
Sara  said,  "  and  I  '11  try  to  see  if  I  can't 
arrange  a  little  rest  for  her ;  but  first  of 
all,  life  must  be  saved." 

Then  she  went  away,  her  lip  between 
her  white  teeth,  and  her  breath  quick. 
"  Horrible  man !  "  she  said  to  herself, 
"  the  idea  of  reasoning  about  a  thing  like 
that  —  a  human  life  !  Dreadful  person ! 
I  hope  I  shall  never  see  him  again." 

Dr.  Morse,  in  his  office,  thrust  his  hands 
down  into  his  pockets,  and  stretched  his 
feet  out,  and  reflected.  "  I  suppose  she 
thinks  I  'm  a  brute.  I  might  have  known 
better  than  to  talk  to  a  sentimental  girl 
as  though  she  were  a  rational  being. 
She  '11  keep  that  creature  alive  long 
234 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

enough  to  bring  two  or  three  fellows 
down  to  the  gutter,  and,  possibly,  even 
continue  her  physical  and  moral  charac 
teristics  in  a  child  (though  that's  not 
likely,  thank  heaven),  and  then  feel  that 
she's  done  her  duty!  Good  Lord,  the 
harm  these  philanthropists  do  ! " 

Nevertheless  he  softened  a  little  when 
a  short  and  formal  note  came  from  Miss 
Wharton,  with  a  small  sum  of  money  for 
"the  case  of  which  he  had  spoken." 

"  She  's  got  a  good  heart,  that  girl,'* 
he  told  himself.  "  Her  ten  dollars  won't 
do  much,  though ;  and  to  think  of  that 
little  squalid  Nellie  Sherman  having  a 
hundred  spent  to  keep  her  worthless 
body  alive ! " 


So  Nellie's  summer  outing  was  ar 
ranged  :  she  was  to  have  four  months  in 
a  quiet  place  in  the  country ;  plenty  of 
fresh  air,  and  good  milk,  and  wholesome 
food. 

No  wonder  the  little  pale  cheeks  grew 
round  and  faintly  pink  ;  that  her  eyes 
seemed  darker  and  brighter ;  her  pinched, 
235 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

white  lips  fuller  and  redder.  In  a  month 
it  was  evident  that  the  quiet  life  which 
Sara  had  taken  such  pains  to  find  was 
good  for  her ;  her  whole  miserable,  sickly 
body  began  to  thrive.  It  was  a  "  quiet  " 
life.  From  the  girl's  point  of  view  it  was 
perfectly  intolerable.  She  endured,  in  her 
way,  the  misery  of  the  intellectual  man 
or  woman  cut  off  absolutely  from  books 
or  study  of  any  kind,  or  of  a  clean  per 
son  obliged  to  live  in  filth.  The  con 
trast  was  as  great.  The  fact  that  it  was 
in  favor  of  righteousness  did  not  make 
it  any  the  less  painful.  Nellie's  sudden 
removal  from  the  cheap  and  base  excite 
ments  of  her  life  caused  absolute  suf 
fering.  Such  suffering,  untempted  re 
formers  argue,  is  good  for  the  soul. 

But  to  Nellie  the  sweet  drift  of  silent 
summer  days  was  maddeningly  dull ;  she 
brooded  over  what  she  felt  was  the  hard 
ship  of  her  lot,  and  looked  back  upon  her 
Mercer  life  as  a  time  of  freedom,  and  of  a 
strange  sort  of  importance,  —  which  was 
as  near  self-respect  as  she  could  come. 
At  least,  in  Mercer  she  was  not  "trod 
on,"  as  she  now  felt  herself  to  be;  she 
236 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

could  go  and  walk  the  street  on  fine  af 
ternoons  with  the  Caligan  girls,  three 
abreast,  arm  in  arm,  strutting  and  jos 
tling  each  other,  and  looking  into  the 
shop  windows  ;  laughing  loudly,  or  glan 
cing  haughtily  at  the  passers-by,  or  gig 
gling  at  "gentlemen  friends."  It  was  all 
so  harmless  and  so  pleasant !  Of  course, 
Mrs.  Smith's  on  Baker  Street,  that  was 
different ;  but  just  to  meet  lady  and  gen 
tlemen  friends,  and  talk  and  "  carry  on  " 
—  what  was  wrong  in  that  ?  She  did,  to 
be  sure,  feel  nervous  about  her  health; 
but  if  it  were  necessary  to  go  into  the 
country,  why  could  n't  she  have  gone 
to  a  hotel,  where  she  could  have  had 
some  fun  ?  It  seemed  a  cruel  life  to 
Nellie !  She  came  to  feel  toward  Sara 
Wharton,  instead  of  the  uncomfortable 
resentment  which  in  such  natures  takes 
the  place  of  gratitude,  a  venomous  hatred. 
Sara  seemed  to  this  poor,  mean  soul,  a 
powerful  enemy,  one  who  interfered  with 
every  joy,  and,  not  content  with  that, 
who  "talked;"  and  Nellie  hated  talk. 
Like  most  of  her  class,  except  when  in 
a  rage,  she  had  little  to  say  beyond  ex- 
237 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

clamations,  and  Miss  Wharton's  impetu 
ous  flow  of  words,  her  entreaties,  and 
rebukes,  and  suggestions,  had  only  bewil 
dered  and  irritated  the  girl ;  for  Sara, 
like  most  of  her  class,  had  never  taken 
Nellie's  mental  deficiencies  into  account ; 
she  treated  her  always  like  a  rational  be 
ing.  Like  a  "  Soul,"  Sara  herself  would 
have  said. 

So,  up  on  the  farm,  as  her  fright  about 
her  health  subsided,  poor  Nellie  raged 
against  her  benefactor  and  her  cruel  fate. 
She  fell  into  fits  of  weeping,  or,  what  was 
worse  to  the  quiet  husband  and  wife  in 
whose  charge  she  was,  into  long  silences, 
broken  only  by  fitful  flashes  of  black 
temper.  Yet  in  spite  of  this,  her  bod 
ily  health  increased.  Very  likely  there 
would  have  been  open  rebellion,  and  a 
break  for  liberty  by  midsummer,  if  an 
unexpected  interest  had  not  come  into 
her  life.  Two  students,  with  their  tutor, 
came  to  camp  out  near  the  farm ;  and 
after  passing  them  once  or  twice  in  the 
road,  and  giggling  with  them  over  the 
posting  of  a  letter  in  the  office,  poor  Nel 
lie  grew  better  tempered.  She  frizzed  her 


VTHE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

hair  with  keener  enjoyment,  and  prac 
ticed  airs  and  graces  before  her  glass  all 
the  long  hot  forenoons ;  and  in  the  after 
noons  walked  in  to  the  village  on  the  re 
mote  chance  of  meeting  the  two  boys. 
She  did  not  see  them  often,  but  to  know 
they  were  near  gave  her  something  to 
think  about  in  the  deadly  monotony  of 
farm  life,  and  she  was  much  happier.  On 
the  rare  occasions  of  their  meeting  she 
would  roll  her  eyes,  and  talk  in  her  sim 
pering,  nasal  voice  of  the  weather,  or  the 
novel  she  had  been  reading,  or  how  her 
"guardian"  had  sent  her  into  the  coun 
try  for  her  health.  The  boys  said  to 
each  other  that  she  was  pretty,  and  rip 
ping  good  fun;  and  used  to  laugh  over 
her  silliness  with  their  tutor.  They  were 
too  busy  and  too  wholesomely  happy  to 
give  very  much  thought  to  her. 

Thus  the  summer  passed.  The  health 
which  Sara  Wharton  so  earnestly  desired 
had  returned,  temporarily  at  least.  When 
at  last  the  first  of  September  came,  and 
Miss  Wharton's  letter  arrived  to  say  she 
might  come  home,  —  such  a  gentle, 
friendly,  sympathetic  letter,  —  Nellie  was 
239 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

wild  with  delight.  She  could  hardly  re 
member  to  say  good-by  to  the  kind  peo 
ple  who  had  looked  after  her  for  the 
last  few  months ;  she  almost  forgot  the 
boys  ;  she  was  tremulous  with  joy. 

"Oh,  I  'm  so  glad  to  go  back  —  oh,  I 
hate,  hate,  hate  the  country !  "  she  kept 
saying ;  while  the  husband  and  wife 
looked  at  each  other  wonderingly. 

So,  strengthened  and  invigorated,  pant 
ing  for  excitement,  unchecked  by  any 
moral  perceptions,  by  gratitude,  by  love, 
even  by  fear  (now  that  she  was  well 
again),  —  she  came  back  to  Mercer. 


VI 

One  night  in  December,  Sara  Whar- 
ton,  coming  home  from  a  dinner,  was  told 
that  Dr.  Morse  was  waiting  for  her  in 
the  library.  She  went  in  at  once,  pulling 
off  her  long  gloves,  and  with  her  white 
cloak  falling  back  from  her  pretty  shoul 
ders.  She  had  not  seen  the  doctor  since 
that  talk  about  Nellie,  and  she  had  for 
gotten  her  indignation  with  him.  She 
had  heard  too  much  of  his  goodness 
240 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

among  the  poor  people  to  harbor  resent 
ment. 

"  Oh,  I  am  so  sorry  to  be  so  late,"  she 
said.  "  Have  you  been  waiting  very 
long  ?  Oh,  this  room  is  cold !  Why 
have  n't  they  kept  the  fire  up  ?  "  She 
turned,  with  a  pretty,  hospitable  impulse 
to  summon  a  servant,  but  Dr.  Morse 
stopped  her  with  a  gesture. 

"  I  am  quite  warm.  I  will  only  detain 
you  for  a  few  moments.  I  want  you  to 
help  me." 

"  Indeed,  I  will ;  has  anything  gone 
wrong? " 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  with  a  hard  look. 

"  One  of  your  poor  people  ?  "  she  asked. 
She  sat  down  by  the  fire,  one  silken  foot 
on  the  fender;  her  cloak  had  slipped 
down  behind  her,  and  she  was  pulling 
out  her  gloves,  and  smoothing  them  on 
her  knee.  She  looked  up  at  him  with  a 
charming  smile. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  one  of  my  poor  peo 
ple —  and  yours.  Miss  Wharton,  can 
you  tell  me  anything  about  Nellie  Sher 
man?" 

"  Nellie  ?  "  Sara  Wharton's  face  began 
241 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

to  change.  "Oh,  Dr.  Morse,  I  wish  I 
could  tell  you  anything  encouraging 
about  her.  She  quarreled  with  her  aunt, 
and  went  to  work  at  a  factory  in  North 
Mercer.  She  hardly  ever  comes  home, 
I  'm  sorry  to  say ;  she  is  boarding  with  a 
respectable  family,  I  believe,  and  I  think 
she  does  not  depend  on  Mrs.  Sherman 
for  any  money.  But  I  Ve  lost  my  hold 
on  her  —  if  I  ever  had  any!  She  has 
only  been  to  see  me  once  since  she  came 
home  in  September.  You  know  I  sent 
her  away  in  the  summer  ?  And  she  got 
well,  Dr.  Morse ! "  she  ended  trium 
phantly. 

"  Yes ;  she  did,"  he  said  with  stern 
significance. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  Is  she  sick 
again  ?  is  she  —  dead  ?  " 

"  Dead  ?     I  wish  she  were." 

"  Dr.  Morse  !  " 

"Miss  Wharton,  that  miserable  crea 
ture  has  lived  long  enough  to  corrupt  and 
seduce  an  innocent  boy.  Young  Jack 
Hayes  has  —  I  beg  your  pardon,  this  is 
plain  talk  —  but  I  am  a  physician  and 
you  are  —  a  philanthropist,  so  we  need 
242 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

not  mince  words,  —  Jack  has  gone  off 
with  her.  I  have  come  to-night  from  his 
mother's  bedside.  Mrs.  Hayes  has  just 
heard  what  he  has  done  —  her  innocent 
boy." 

Sara  rose,  shrinking  and  wincing  as 
though  he  had  struck  her. 

"  I  thought  it  possible,"  he  went  on, 
"that  you  might  know  where  she  was 
living,  and  perhaps  I  could  get  on  her 
track.  She  met  Jack  up  in  the  country ; 
he  was  there  with  a  tutor  ;  of  course,  she 
had  no  difficulty  in  finding  him  when  he 
came  back  to  town.  He  went  off  with 
her  on  Sunday,  we  think  —  at  least,  one 
of  the  Clay  boys  saw  him  with  her  Sun 
day  night,  and  he  has  n't  been  at  home 
since." 

"  I  don't  know  where  she  is,"  Sara 
said  brokenly. 

"  I  went  to  see  Mrs.  Sherman  before  I 
came  here,  and  do  you  know  what  she 
said  to  me  ?  She  sat,  poor  woman,  with 
the  tears  streaming  down  her  cheeks  : 
*  Oh,'  she  said,  '  if  I  could  only  know  she 
was  dead!  If  she  was  just  safe  in  her 
grave!"' 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

Sara  shivered. 

"  I  thought  to  myself,  *  She  would  be, 
you  poor  soul,  if  some  of  us  wise  people 
had  not  interfered.'  I  reproach  myself," 
he  went  on  savagely,  "  that  I  did  not  try 
to  dissuade  you  when  you  told  me  you 
meant  to  keep  the  girl  alive.  We  ought 
to  stamp  such  vermin  out  —  or  let  it  die 
out,  at  least.  Instead,  you  philanthro 
pists  and  we  doctors  do  all  we  can  to 
keep  them  alive,  —  that  they  may  propa 
gate  their  kind  !  Fortunately,  nature 
generally  prevents  that,  —  but  Nellie's 
mother  was  a  fallen  woman,  you  may  re 
member  ?  Poor  Jack — poor  Mrs.  Hayes ! 
Miss  Wharton,  our  hands  are  not  inno 
cent  of  that  boy's  blood." 

Sara  was  very  white ;  she  still  trem 
bled,  but  she  lifted  her  head  and  looked 
full  at  him.  "Dr.  Morse,  are  you  God, 
to  kill?" 

"  Or  you,  to  make  alive  ? "  he  inter 
rupted.  "  I  did  not  ask  you  to  kill  —  I 
asked  you  not  to  interfere  —  to  allow 
God  to  work  in  his  own  way.  I  asked 
you  to  use  that  judgment  which,  in  ordi 
nary  affairs,  is  so  excellent  —  to  consider 
244 


THE   LAW,   OR  THE   GOSPEL 

probabilities  ;  you  do  as  much  as  that  in 
refusing  to  leave  a  lighted  candle  in  a  pow 
der  magazine.  What  would  you  think  of 
me,  if  I  turned  a  smallpox  patient  loose 
in  a  crowd  ?  Nellie  is  far  more  danger 
ous  than  smallpox.  Don't  you  see  — 
surely  you  must  see !  that  it  would  have 
been  better  for  the  community  if  she  had 
died  last  summer  ?  " 

"  Better  for  the  community,"  Sara  said 
passionately ;  "  but  what  about  Nellie  ? 
Would  it  have  been  better  for  Nellie  ? " 

"  It  could  hardly  be  worse,  could  it  ? " 
he  answered  dryly ;  "  but  if  it  were  worse, 
better  one  lost  soul  than  two  or  three." 

"  God  does  n't  lose  souls  so  easily,"  she 
cried;  but  he  pressed  the  logic  of  her 
hope  home. 

"  Then  why  not  have  trusted  Him,  and 
let  her  die  ?  Death  is  n't  the  worst  thing 
in  the  world  !  And  may  I  remind  you  " 
—  they  had  both  risen ;  and  from  a  cruel 
sort  of  justice  on  his  part,  and  a  horrified 
dismay  on  hers,  anger  was  arising  in  their 
eyes  —  "  may  I  remind  you  of  a  poor 
woman  of  whom  I  spoke  that  day  you 
came  to  see  me  about  Nellie  ?  She  is  in 
245 


THE  LAW,   OR   THE  GOSPEL 

the  hospital,  broken  down  absolutely ; 
her  brother  is  in  the  almshouse,  and  her 
mother  living  on  charity.  But  Nellie 
Sherman,  a  thief,  a  liar,  a  prostitute,  a 
moral  imbecile,  is  in  good  health  !  " 

"You  have  no  right  to  say  such 
things,"  Sara  said,  in  a  low  voice.  "  I 
had  to  give  that  poor  creature  a  chance 
to  save  her  soul ;  and  to  do  that  I  had  to 
save  her  body  "  — 

"  And  ruin  Jack  —  body  and  soul "  — 

"That  was  not  my  business,"  she  flung 
back  at  him. 

"  It  was  your  business  ! "  he  said.  "  It 
was  your  business  to  weigh  probabilities. 
Oh !  "  he  ended,  impetuously,  "  the  trou 
ble  with  us  is,  nowadays,  that  we  make 
too  much  of  life,  and  too  little  of  living. 
It  is  living  that  is  important,  not  existence ! 
I  tell  you,  Miss  Wharton,  there  is  only  a 
limited  amount  of  power  in  the  world  ; 
only  a  limited  amount  of  opportunity,  or 
of  money,  for  that  matter  ;  and  we  are 
bound  to  put  power  and  opportunity  and 
money  where  they  will  do  the  most  good  ! 
Did  you  put  them  where  they  would  do 
the  most  good  ?  " 

246 


THE  LAW,   OR  THE  GOSPEL 

Sara  flinched,  then  rallied  all  her  faith. 
"  Dr.  Morse,  I  did  the  duty  which  came 
to  my  hands  ;  I  had  no  choice." 

"No  choice?"  he  repeated.  "There 
is  always  choice !  that  's  where  respon 
sibility  comes  in.  The  good  woman  and 
the  bad  woman  may  not  come  and  stand 
hand  in  hand  before  you,  each  asking  aid. 
But  the  good  woman,  abstractly,  is  al 
ways  dying  (or  —  being  tempted  to  turn 
into  a  bad  woman,  for  that  matter !),  so 
there  is  always  choice.  We  've  got  to 
consider  moral  economics  ;  we  Ve  no 
business  to  gratify  our  selfish  sentimen- 
talism  at  the  expense  of  society  !  "  He 
was  so  much  in  earnest  that  he  did  not 
see  how  tensely  she  was  holding  herself, 
or  what  a  look  of  terror  had  come  into 
her  young  face. 

"The  Gospel  of  Love  is  all  I  can 
plead,"  she  said,  in  the  voice  of  one  in 
sisting  to  herself ;  "  but  it  is  the  salvation 
of  the  world  !  " 

All  the  stern  anxiety  of  his  face  melted 

into  an  exaltation  as  intense  as  her  own. 

"  Law   is   the   salvation   of   the  world  ! 

And  law  means  that   the  good  of  the 

247 


THE  LAW,  OR  THE  GOSPEL 

whole,  not  the  comfort  of  the  individual, 
shall  be  considered ;  it  means  a  love  so 
sane  as  to  permit  the  mercy  of  death." 

Sara  put  her  hands  over  her  face  to 
hide  a  burst  of  tears.  Her  accuser  ground 
his  teeth  in  helpless  discomfort. 

"I'm  right,"  he  said  doggedly,  "but 
I  'm  a  brute ;  I  wish  you  would  forgive 
me." 

She  turned  from  him,  unable  to  speak. 
He  wanted  to  follow  her,  to  comfort  her  ; 
to  say,  as  one  does  to  a  child  or  a  woman, 
"  Never  mind,"  —  but  he  dared  not. 

"  I  'm  sorry  I  Ve  wounded  you,"  he 
said  again  miserably;  "I  hope  you  will 
forgive  me  ? " 

"  Forgive  you  ? "  she  turned  and  faced 
him,  the  tears  on  her  face ;  "  I  have  n't 
anything  to  forgive.  Do  you  suppose  I 
care  how  you  talk  to  me  f  —  if  I  am  right  ? 
oh,  if  I  am  right !  " 

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